48-Hours in Temple Bar

Temple Bar Food Market

The Temple Bar Food Market at Meeting House Square, is a foodie’s paradise on a Saturday afternoon. Local producers offer a wide range of organic food, home baking, low food miles, seasonal produce, delicious ingredients, food to go and a wide range of produce in all weights and portion sizes. It runs from 10am-6pm every Saturday.

Temple Bar Designer Mart at Cow’s Lane

Designer Mart at Cow’s Lane showcases 30 artists and designers from around the country and offers an exciting and broad range of original handmade jewellery, fashion, furniture design, visual art and photography. The Old City, Temple Bar is an ideal location to pick up a one-off unique piece from the creator, or an art piece for that special gift. It runs every Saturday 10am-5pm.

Smock Alley Theatre

Smock Alley was the first Theatre Royal built in Dublin. John Ogilby opened it in 1662 as part of the Restoration of the British monarchy and King Charles II in 1660, along with the London’s Drury Lane (1662) and the Lincoln’s

Inn Fields (1661). It was the first custom-built theatre in the city and still remains in substantially the same form, making it one of the most important sites in European theatre history.

Darkey Kelly’s Bar & Restaurant

One of the best-known pubs in Dublin for traditional Irish music, Darkey Kelly’s is located in one of the oldest parts of Dublin City. For generations, Darkey Kelly was known in Dublin’s folk memory as the woman who was burned at the stake for witchcraft, but new uncovered evidence suggests that although she was innocent of witchcraft, she still had a dark side to her character. The discovery of bodies under the floorboards of the brothel she ran in 1761 suggests she may have been Ireland’s first serial killer!

Fishamble Street is also one of the oldest streets in the City. Handel’s ‘Messiah’ was first performed here in 1742 and every year on the 13th of April the Messiah is performed free of charge to a public audience.

Dublinia: Experience Viking & Medieval Dublin

Dublinia is a not-for-profit heritage centre located at Christ Church, the crossroads of Dublin’s medieval city. Meet the Vikings face-to-face, learn about life during the medieval period in Dublin, explore the world of archaeology and see a medieval view of a modern city from their tower. At Dublinia, you will see Dublin from a new perspective and a new archaeology exhibition is due to open soon.

Icon Factory

The Icon Factory is an artist’s co-operative, not-for-profit collective run entirely by artists and volunteers. It is dedicated to celebrating Ireland’s cultural heritage through the artistic creation of Icons and through displaying these on their sister project, The Icon Walk. These artworks - representing rock stars, sporting heroes, writers and television stars - are reproduced and available in various forms in The Icon Factory.

Elephant & Castle chicken wings

This Temple Bar institution has been going for 27 years and claims to be the home of Ireland’s original basket of chicken wings. The hot, spicy chicken wings are an iconic dish - you just can’t go there and not order them. Colin Farrell used to work in the restaurant, and Eva Longoria even popped in to sample their wares when she was visiting for the 2014 Web Summit. For years, diners have been trying to coax the recipe for the dark red, hot and savoury sauce from the restaurant wait staff, but to no avail.

Workman’s Club live music

From a riotous Cillian Murphy DJ set and Villagers live album recording, to a Jimi Hendrix film shoot with Andre 3000 and Royal Blood’s barnstorming first Irish gig, they’ve seen a whole heap of rock ‘n’ roll action at the Workman’s Club since opening the Wellington Quay doors in 2010.

Run by people passionate about music, the venue welcomes performers of all flavours. Alongside the headline gigs, The Workman’s Club is home to some of the capital’s finest club, comedy, acoustic and new band showcase nights.