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With its rounded name and huge dome centre – befitting of a maternity hospital – The Rotunda sits in the centre of Dublin’s north inner city, closing off the top of O’Connell Street. An end, containing so many beginnings. Surrounded by shops, theatres and the Garden of Remembrance, The Rotunda Hospital has long been at the heart of Dublin’s history. Throughout famines, protests, pandemics and revolution, it has quietly continued on with the ordinary business of life. The Rotunda Hospital’s history and origins Founded in 1745 by Bartholomew Mosse, The Rotunda is the oldest continuously-running maternity hospital in the world. 9,000 babi

On the morning that I visit the Royal Irish Academy, they’re testing out the new Luas on Dawson Street; empty carriages move by while people take time to stop and take in Dublin’s ever-evolving cityscape. The Royal Irish Academy has been located at 19 Dawson Street since 1851 when it moved from its Grafton Street origins to the more spacious Academy House. Sandwiched between Saint Anne’s Church and the Mansion House, you have probably walked past its elegant exterior hundreds of times and assumed that whatever happens inside has nothing to do with you. But the Academy wants you to know that it has. Pauric Dempsey, the Head of Communications, meets me in reception

The UCD AIB Superleague, within the amateur footballing community of Dublin, is renowned for both the disorganisation and passion of its teams. Often referred to as, The Hangover League, matches take place on Saturdays and Sundays with teams of misfits and football enthusiasts who don’t have the commitment to play for a ‘real’ team in the Dublin league. In college, football is often a decent ice-breaker when meeting new people. In fact, that rule applies to all walks of life, not exclusively college. The conversation often leads to the question, “So, do you play for a team?” If you respond with, “Oh yeah, I play in the

Jane Jacobs, the doyenne of urban planning, believed that the success of any city owed a lot to the “intricacy of pavement use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes”. She wrote, in The Death and Life of Great American Cities: “There must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers, and to ensure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind.” However, what happens when the residents and strangers are themselves blind to the

Although the Irish Writers Centre has long been a place for keen readers and writers to attend readings and launches, or to take part in one of the many writing classes on offer covering every topic from memoir to ghostwriting to autofiction, the centre can at times be overlooked because of its location, tucked away as it is away from the bustle of the city, beyond the trees of the Garden of Remembrance.

The jewel of Dublin’s music scene Sometimes the queue for The Ruby Sessions is so long that it snakes down the stairs of Doyles pub and out the door around past the old plaque on the wall that says “Good times are coming/ Be they ever so far away” and down into the dark and puddles of Fleet Street. If you find yourself that far back, your chances of getting in are very far away indeed. These are the nights when word has leaked out into the world that a ‘Very Special Guest’ will be taking to the mic of the renowned live music night. And for the price of a €10 charity donation, you too could be part of the intimate gathering that surrounds the candlelit stage

They’re a group of lads from around the Liberties. Late teens to early 20s, bustling with animation. Bit of slagging about who is going to talk to Dublin.ie. Probably a bit of slagging about the guy from Dublin.ie. But these are decent guys. You could probably place a safe bet that one or two of them might be no stranger to a bit of mischief in their day. So what they are up to takes you a little bit by surprise. If someone outside the gate told you that these guys were making salad bowls inside the yard, “get up the yard!” would be your likely response. But this is the Yard Crew, part of the Solas Project. The

Walking through Temple Bar on a midweek afternoon, the sounds of céilí bands and lads on guitars belting out U2 covers tumble out onto the street every time a pub door swings open. Buskers are so much a part of Dublin culture that Glen Hansard starred in an Oscar winning film about them. Phil Lynott’s statue off Grafton Street is often draped in rocker pilgrims from around the world, a replica of Rory Gallagher’s rusty guitar hangs over his own designated corner near Meeting House Square, and Whelan’s is a mecca for any serious music lover. Dublin’s rock heritage is as legendary as its literary one, with the city punching well above its weight on the international scene

On a quiet corner in Stoneybatter, behind a quaint but unassuming shopfront lies renowned Dublin publishing house, Lilliput Press. The door is wide open when I arrive, and the sunshine falls in on a room lined with bookshelves. Two men sit on a sofa by the window, leaning over a coffee table covered in books. The door of founder Antony Farrell’s office sits ajar, and inside there is the busyness of a thoroughly active office; heaped manuscripts, teetering book stacks, handwritten letters taped to the wall. After he ensures I have a coffee and a bit of fruit to snack on, I sit on a chair in amongst the chaos of the heaving room. Antony sits behind his desk, peeling a mand

You may not realise it, but Capel Street is one of Dublin’s most historically significant streets. It doesn’t appear in tourist guides as much as O’Connell Street or Grafton Street, but it’s definitely worth spending some time here. The history of Capel Street Back in the 17th century, Capel Street was a fundamental part of Dublin’s expansion north of the river Liffey by Sir Humphrey Jervis.

Combining visual art and long distance swimming When Vanessa Daws moved to Dublin in 2011, she did something that might seem unusual to most people, but has become a habit for her. “The first thing I did was arrange a swim down the Liffey at dawn. What I normally do when I go on art residencies or move somewhere, I find the nearest body of water and I swim in it.” The idea of swimming across the M50 was quite interesting, but it was scary. She tells me that she does this to feel more at home in a place: To bond with a place. To be accepted by the city. Connecting, submerging, in the city. “If I swam, I just knew I’d