Dublin walking tours compared: the tips-based free tour, the €23 1916 walk, the literary and musical pub crawls, ghost tours and Trinity Trails

💡 The Short Version: For a first orientation, Yellow Umbrella Tours’ Southside walk runs on tips daily at 10am, 11am and 2pm from the Spire on O’Connell Street, and reviews on its page put it at about 3 hours. A paid city walk is from €19ad for 2 hours. For history, Dublin’s Original 1916 Tour is €23 for about 2 hours. At night, the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl is €20 to €22 and the Traditional Irish Musical Pub Crawl is €26; ghost toursad start at €22. Trinity Trails is from €17 for 45 minutes inside the college. The walks are outdoors: none includes entry to a museum or a cathedral, and Dublin Castle is closed to the public until January 2027. Prices on GetYourGuide are the lowest “from” prices for one adult and move with the date (GetYourGuide).

The tours, compared

Tip-based walks

Yellow Umbrella Tours

Tips · about 3 hours · the Spire on O’Connell Street

Yellow Umbrella Tours runs the Best of Dublin Tour, a Southside walk, at 10am, 11am and 2pm daily, and a Northside tour at 3pm daily. The Southside walk takes in Trinity College, Temple Bar, Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral and St Patrick’s Cathedral; the Northside tour visits sites such as the Garden of Remembrance. Both meet beside the Spire, the tall steel needle in the middle of O’Connell Street. There is no fixed price: the guide is paid in tips at the end. Reviews on the operator’s page report 2 hours 45 minutes to about 3 hours for the Southside walk. The firm also runs a Dublin Traditional Pub Tour daily at 6pm from the Spire, and walks in Spanish.

O’Connell Street looking towards the Spire. Photo: Manfred Kopka, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

City walks

Highlights and Hidden Gems

From €24 · 4,055 reviews · 2 hours

Dublin: Highlights and Hidden Gems Walking Tourad is a city-centre walk with an accredited guide, passing Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral and Trinity College. The sights themselves are in what to book before you go to Dublin.

The historical walk and the mythology walk

Historical from €19 · 1,305 reviews · Mythology from €24 · 1,220 reviews · 2 hours each

Dublin: 2-Hour Guided Historical Walking Tourad covers Dublin Castle, Temple Bar, City Hall and the medieval city. Dublin: Mythology, Folklore and Legends Walking Tourad is about the stories and characters rather than the buildings.

Cobbled Ship Street Great in the evening. Photo: Ridiculopathy, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

History walks

Dublin’s Original 1916 Tour

€23 · about 2 hours · The International Bar, 23 Wicklow Street

Lorcan Collins, an author and historian, founded the tour in 1996 and leads it with his colleagues. It covers the Easter Rising of 1916, the executions of its leaders and the years to the Irish Free State, and also reaches back to 1798. It meets at The International Bar, 23 Wicklow Street, Monday to Saturday at 11:30am and Sunday at 1pm, from March to October, with Saturdays only in January and February; private tours for groups of up to 10 run all year. It is €23 a person, and the operator asks you to book on its own site, 1916rising.com. The 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin puts the walk beside the GPO, Kilmainham Gaol and Glasnevin.

Trinity College

Trinity Trails

From €17 · 45 minutes · open 9:00am to 5:00pm daily

Trinity’s own student guides lead Trinity Trails through Front Square, the Campanile, the Chapel and Exam Hall, the Dining Hall and the Rubrics, Trinity’s oldest surviving building. The walking tour is from €17 in five languages, a literary walk to the Samuel Beckett Theatre is from €39, and the walk with the Book of Kells Experience is from €37 for about 2 hours; a self-guided tour is from €6.50 (visittrinity.ie). GetYourGuide sells the walking tour as Trinity Trails Guided Walking Tourad from €16 (853 reviews). The Book of Kells has its own page: Book of Kells tickets.

Pub crawls

Dublin Literary Pub Crawl

€20 to €22 · 2 hours 20 minutes · The Duke, 9 Duke Street, 7:15pm

An actor-led walk through four historic pubs and Trinity College, about 1 km in all, that ends with a literary quiz. It runs nightly in summer and from Thursday to Sunday in winter, and has run since 1988. The operator also runs the Lit Walk, a 1 hour 45 minute actor-guided walk from the same meeting point for €20, and private tours for groups (dublinpubcrawl.com).

Traditional Irish Musical Pub Crawl

Adult €26 · child €20 · family €84, plus a booking fee · 6pm to about 8:15pm

Two professional musicians play Irish music and tell the story of it, and the operator describes the evening as a moving concert with a singalong. It starts upstairs at the Ha’penny Bridge Inn in Temple Bar and finishes at Flanagan’s on O’Connell Street, with seating guaranteed in both bars. It runs from March to October, Sunday to Friday. Food is available in both bars but not during the performance, and Flanagan’s gives crawlers 10 per cent off its à la carte menu (musicalpubcrawl.com). The pubs where a session happens without a guide are in traditional music pubs in Dublin.

Other pub tours

Traditional Pub Walking Tour €42 · Traditional Music Pub Tour €67 · Generation Pub Crawl €14

Dublin: Traditional Pub Walking Tourad is 4 hours from €42 (572 reviews) and visits four local pubs with traditional music and tasters of craft beer, whiskey, gin and tonic, and Guinness. Dublin: Traditional Music Pub Tour with Local Musicianad is 3 hours from €67 (122 reviews) and visits three music sessions in city-centre pubs. Dublin: Generation Pub Crawlad is 5 hours from €14 (3,795 reviews) and lists free Guinness, free shots and nightclub entry.

Ghost tours

From €22 · 2 hours each

Ghost tours are evening tours of about 2 hours, on foot or by bus.

DoDublin lists its Ghostbus from €35 on its own site (dublinsightseeing.ie).

Which tour

• Free, and a first look at the centre: Yellow Umbrella’s Southside walk, on tips.
• A 2-hour walk with a booked guide: the historical walk from €19.
• The Easter Rising: Dublin’s Original 1916 Tour, €23.
• Trinity College from the inside: Trinity Trails, from €17.
• An evening with writers: the Literary Pub Crawl, €20 to €22.
• An evening with music: the Musical Pub Crawl, €26, from March to October.
• After dark: a ghost tour from €22.

The walks are outdoors and do not include entry to the sights they pass; the Dublin Castle campus is closed until January 2027, and Dublin Castle and the Chester Beatty has what is open nearby. For a bus instead of a walk, see Dublin hop-on hop-off buses. What to book before you go to Dublin lists the sights that sell out, 3 days in Dublin fits a tour into the days around them, and Leap card and Dublin public transport covers the way to the meeting points. Where to stay in Dublin compares the areas, and free things to do in Dublin lists what costs nothing.