The old Jameson whiskey distillery is a beautiful and historic building in the heart of Dublin. It’s undergone numerous changes in its long life, the most recent of which has seen the building transformed into a spacious venue for distillery tours and events. As the project manager at the Jameson Brand Home, Paula Reynolds played a central role in the redevelopment of the site. “We were lucky in that the people working with us on the renovation managed to keep about 90 per cent of the original structures intact.” She points to the glass flooring we’re walking on. “Through the glass here you can see the original foundations of the distillery.” She points to

‘Sunlight Chambers’, it says over the door of the office building on the corner of Parliament Street and Essex Quay. What a lovely name! But why is the building called that? Facing north across the Liffey, it certainly wasn’t catching many rays when Dublin.ie visited on a day in December. With its arched windows and overhanging eaves, it looks like an Italian palace, built perhaps for a cadet branch of the Medici family c1500. But hang on a second, what’s with the strange 3D decorations stuck on the walls of the first and second storeys? There’s nude babies, a donkey, a man building a boat, two men constructing an arch, a bunch of Renaissance-styl

In a random (and completely unscientific) study I asked several people to name five of the best known statues in Dublin. Merrion Square’s Oscar Wilde was name checked, as was Patrick Kavanagh’s canal bank sit‐down. Some confusion reigned as to where Molly Malone had been repositioned from Grafton Street (she now wheels her wheelbarrow on Suffolk Street) but each and every person questioned mentioned the iconic bronze statue of rock star Phil Lynott, who left us for the great stage in the sky 33 years ago ‐ January 4th, 1986, to be precise. While the immortalisations of Daniel O’Connell, James Connolly, Charles Stewart Parnell or James Larkin went unmentioned in our (again to be stressed, unscientific) poll, one might take this as less of a lack of interest in Dublin’s political history, and more of an indication as to the special place the Thin Lizzy frontman continues to hold in Dubliners’ hearts. A poet and a rocker, the Brummie‐born lead singer and bassist, who grew up in Crumlin, remains one of the city’s most beloved sons.

Mattress Mick’s got nothing on this. This is the greatest gathering of mattresses you’ve ever seen, taking up most of the floor space in a warehouse in Glasnevin. With stacks and stacks of the things 20 and 30 deep, even the most sensitive of princesses could get a decent 40 winks here. If it wasn’t, that is, for the occasional high-pitched squishing noise coming from the machine that bales-up mattress innards in preparation for recycling. Eco Mattress does two very valuable things simultaneously. As a social enterprise, it provides jobs and hands-on work experience for p

Renata Sperandio is the director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Dublino, the Dublin branch of the Italian cultural institute. Renata, from Belluno in the Veneto region of Italy, has been in Dublin for three years. She has another three to go before her next posting. And, God bless her, she’s learning Irish – with the help of Duolingo, the well-known Irish language learning app. ‘Duolingo’s on my phone too’, says Dublin.ie. ‘It’s terrific.’ ‘Is it?’, asks Renata. ‘Well, yes it is’, I explain. Duolingo does an excellent job indeed. But it’s got its work cut out for it – because, make no mistake