Georgian Dublin walk: from Trinity College to Merrion Square, Fitzwilliam Square and Grafton Street, with what is open each day

One of 2 self-guided walks in Dublin. See every walk.

In this guide

💡 The Short Version: Start at Trinity College, 150 m from the Trinity Luas stop, and finish at the foot of Grafton Street: 4.1 km, about an hour and ten minutes of walking and a day with the visits. Go on a Saturday: Oscar Wilde House is open at weekends only (€12, no booking), and the National Museum opens at 10:00 on Saturdays but at 13:00 on Sundays and Mondays. The Book of Kells is a timed ticket, €19 for the Old Library and €25 with the Red Pavilion. Leinster House has no public tours. The National Gallery, the National Museum and the National Library’s Yeats exhibition are free. The garden in Fitzwilliam Square is for residents, so its doors are seen from the pavement. Or book a tour: Trinity Trailsad is from €16 for 45 minutes.

The route

Map of the walk numbered stops in walking order

Open the whole route in Google Maps - all the stops in walking order, set to walking directions, which is the version to put on your phone.

Georgian means built under the four Georges, between 1714 and 1830. The route runs south-east from Trinity to Merrion Square, whose houses were begun in 1762, on to the smaller Fitzwilliam Square, and then west across St Stephen’s Green and down Grafton Street. Prices are the adult rate in euros from each operator.

Walk it with a guide

A guide adds the stories, and none of these includes entry to the sights above unless it says so. Prices are GetYourGuide’s lowest “from” prices, per person.

• Dublin: Trinity Trails Guided Walking Tourad: from €16, 4.5 stars from 860 reviews, 45 minutes. It is Trinity’s own student-guided walk round the campus, and it does not include the Old Library.
• Dublin: Literary Walking Tour, Afternoon Tea & MoLI Entryad: from €69, 5 stars from 10 reviews, 2.5 to 4 hours. It includes timed entry to the Museum of Literature Ireland, with afternoon tea as an optional upgrade.
• Dublin: Highlights and Hidden Gems Walking Tourad: from €24, 4.8 stars from 4,089 reviews, 2 hours. It starts at 3 Crown Alley in Temple Bar and finishes at Trinity College, past Dublin Castle and Christ Church Cathedral.
• Yellow Umbrella Tours runs a free walk on tips from the Spire on O’Connell Street at 10am, 11am and 2pm. Dublin walking tours compares it with the paid, literary and pub walks.

1. Trinity College and the Book of Kells

Old Library €19 · with the Red Pavilion €25 · timed tickets · College Green

Trinity was founded in 1592, and the Book of Kells is a manuscript about 1,200 years old, shown in the Old Library. Entry is timed and tickets are not refundable, so book on Trinity’s own site before you fly. The €19 ticket takes about 45 minutes; the €25 one adds three digital exhibitions in the Red Pavilion and takes 90 minutes. There is no bag storage. The Long Room’s books have been taken out except in the first four bays, and Trinity says the Old Library stays open to visitors until the end of 2027. Book of Kells tickets has the rest.

• Trinity Trails is a 45-minute student-led walk round the campus, €17 in five languages, and does not include the Old Library. A self-guided campus tour on Trinity’s app is €6.50.

Leave by the Front Gate and walk east along Nassau Street, beside the college, to Kildare Street: 700 m.

2. Kildare Street and Leinster House

Free · National Museum Tuesday to Saturday 10:00 to 17:00, Sunday and Monday 13:00 to 17:00 · Kildare Street

Leinster House is the 18th-century building where Ireland’s Parliament sits. The Oireachtas says tours are limited to those sponsored by a TD or Senator and that public and walk-up tours are not available, so it is seen from the street.

Leinster House, the seat of the Oireachtas. Photo: David Kernan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

• The National Library of Ireland, at 7 and 8 Kildare Street, has a free permanent exhibition on W. B. Yeats, with manuscripts of “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and “Easter, 1916” and his Nobel Prize medal. It is open Monday, Thursday and Friday 9:30 to 17:00, Tuesday and Wednesday 9:30 to 19:00 and Sunday 9:30 to 17:00; on public holiday Mondays it opens at 12:00. It is open every day, and no booking is needed.
• The National Museum of Ireland, Archaeology, next door, is free. It is open Tuesday to Saturday 10:00 to 17:00 and Sunday and Monday 13:00 to 17:00, and closed on Christmas Day, St Stephen’s Day and Good Friday. Museums in Dublin has the rest.

Walk back north to Clare Street and east to Merrion Square West: 400 m.

3. The National Gallery

Free · Hilma af Klint €0 to €16 · Merrion Square West and Clare Street

The permanent collection is free and needs no booking. The Gallery has two entrances, on Merrion Square West and on Clare Street, and it is open every day: Monday and Sunday 11:00 to 17:30, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 9:15 to 17:30, and Thursday 9:15 to 20:30. It begins to close at 16:50 (19:50 on Thursdays), starting with the upper floors. It is shut from 24 to 26 December and on Good Friday.

• Hilma af Klint: Artist and Visionary runs from 15 October 2026 to 7 February 2027 in rooms 6 to 10, with tickets from €0 to €16.
• Bags: self-service lockers at the Merrion Square entrance take handheld and backpack-size items. Suitcases larger than that are not allowed in.

Leinster House and the Natural History Museum stand beside the Gallery on this west side of the square.

Detour: Upper Merrion Street

Free · adds 0.55 km · the Natural History Museum is closed

Skip this on a short day. Upper Merrion Street runs south from the square’s south-west corner, and the detour from the Gallery to The Merrion and on to the park’s north-west corner adds 0.55 km. Government Buildings are on it, opposite The Merrion, which the hotel describes as a restoration of four Georgian townhouses and which houses Patrick Guilbaud, a two-Michelin-star restaurant: see where to eat in Dublin. The Natural History Museum on Merrion Street is closed for refurbishment, and part of its collection is in the Dead Zoo Lab at Collins Barracks.

4. Merrion Square and the Oscar Wilde statue

Park free, 10:00 to 17:30 in November · Oscar Wilde House €12, weekends · 1 Merrion Square North

Merrion Square’s houses were begun in 1762 and built over about 30 years. Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, George Russell (AE) and Daniel O’Connell all lived on the square. Wilde’s family home was No. 1, O’Connell’s No. 58 and Yeats’s No. 82. Look at the doors: a fanlight over each, iron balconies, and windows that get smaller as the floors rise.

The park is open 10:00 to 17:30 in November and 10:00 to 17:00 in December and January, and has a sculpture trail. The Oscar Wilde Memorial, by Danny Osborne (1997), is in the north-west corner, with Wilde reclining on a rock and facing No. 1.

The Oscar Wilde Memorial in Merrion Square Park. Photo: Josi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Oscar Wilde House is open to the public at weekends only. Admission is €12 at the door, with no booking, and covers all four floors and a 20-minute film on the Wilde family. A 90-minute guided tour, €25, runs on selected Saturdays at 18:00 and sells out.

Walk round the east side of the square and down Fitzwilliam Street Lower: 800 m.

5. Fitzwilliam Street and Fitzwilliam Square

Free · from the pavement · garden for residents only

Fitzwilliam Square is the smallest of Dublin’s Georgian squares and the last to be built. The garden in the middle is reserved for residents, so the square is a walk round its four sides to look at the doors, fanlights and railings.

Georgian doors and fanlights in Fitzwilliam Square. Photo: Marathon, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

6. Newman House and the Museum of Literature Ireland

From €16.50 · guided tour €18 · daily 10:00 to 17:00, last admission 16:00 · 86 St Stephen’s Green

Walk west along Leeson Street to the south side of St Stephen’s Green: 830 m. The Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) is in Newman House, a Georgian house with gardens. It shows Copy No. 1 of James Joyce’s Ulysses and has Riverrun of Language, an immersive installation of the sound of Irish literature. A self-guided ticket takes one to two hours; the guided tour and the Historic House Tour are €18 for an hour. Book at moli.ie. The museum is closed on 17 March, from 24 to 26 December and on 1 January.

• The Commons Café is inside and open 10:00 to 17:00 daily, and the MoLI shop is open 10:00 to 17:00 with no ticket needed.

7. St Stephen’s Green and the Little Museum

Green free · Little Museum €18, daily 9:30 to 17:00, last entry 16:30 · 15 St Stephen’s Green

Cross the park from the south side to the north. Lord Ardilaun opened St Stephen’s Green to the public in 1880, and its nine hectares keep their Victorian layout: an ornamental lake, a waterfall and Pulham rockwork on the west side, a James Joyce memorial and a sculpture by Henry Moore. It opens at 7:30 Monday to Saturday and at 9:30 on Sundays and bank holidays.

The Little Museum of Dublin is at No. 15, on the north side. The ticket is a guided tour, €18 (€16 for seniors and students, €45 for a family), and the museum says its tours book up quickly, so book ahead. It shows the 1790s views of Dublin by the draughtsman James Malton, the room of the Irish Times editor Bertie Smyllie, who edited the paper from 1934 to 1954, and U2: Made in Dublin.

8. Grafton Street

Free · Bewley’s daily from 8:00 · Grafton Street

Leave the Green by the Fusiliers’ Arch at its north-west corner, the gateway at the top of Grafton Street, and walk about 550 m down the pedestrian street. Bewley’s Café at Nos. 78 and 79 has been on the street since 1927, with stained glass by Harry Clarke, Pauline Bewick and Jim Fitzpatrick. It opens Monday to Saturday 8:00 to 18:00 and Sunday 8:30 to 18:00, and takes table and afternoon-tea bookings. The Molly Malone statue stands just beyond the foot of the street, on Suffolk Street, where the walk ends.

The Molly Malone statue near the foot of Grafton Street. Photo: Satdeep Gill, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Next: College Green is 100 m on, and Dame Street leads west from it. The medieval Dublin walk starts on Dame Street, at Cork Hill, 510 m from here.

Where to eat

The Gallery Café

National Gallery, Merrion Square West · Monday 11:00 to 17:00, Tuesday and Wednesday 9:30 to 17:00, Thursday 9:30 to 20:00, Friday and Saturday 9:30 to 17:00, Sunday 11:00 to 17:00

A café inside the Gallery, at the third stop. It stays open to 20:00 on Thursdays.

The Commons Café

Museum of Literature Ireland, 86 St Stephen’s Green · daily 10:00 to 17:00

Toasties, breakfasts, soups, salads and cakes in Newman House, run by Gather + Gather. It is open to museum visitors at the sixth stop.

Bewley’s Grafton Street

Grafton Street · Monday to Saturday 8:00 to 18:00, Sunday 8:30 to 18:00

A grand café open since 1927, with stained glass by Harry Clarke, at the last stop. It takes bookings for a table and for afternoon tea. Where to eat in Dublin has the restaurants.

The best day to go

The timing that works, on a Saturday: book Trinity’s first slot at 8:30, reach Kildare Street for the National Museum at 10:00, give the Gallery an hour, and see Merrion Square and Oscar Wilde House by midday. Take Fitzwilliam Square next, lunch at the Commons Café at MoLI, and spend the afternoon on the Green, the Little Museum and Grafton Street.

What closes:

• Monday to Friday: Oscar Wilde House, which opens at weekends only.
• Sunday and Monday mornings: the National Museum, until 13:00.
• Always: Leinster House to visitors without a sponsor, and the Natural History Museum.
• 17 March: the Museum of Literature Ireland.
• Good Friday: the National Gallery and the National Museum.
• 24 to 26 December: the National Gallery and the Museum of Literature Ireland.
• After 17:30 in November, 17:00 from December: Merrion Square Park.

What does not close: the streets and doors of Merrion Square and Fitzwilliam Square, St Stephen’s Green, the National Library’s Yeats exhibition, and the Little Museum, which is open seven days a week.

Getting there and back

• To the start: Trinity College is 150 m from the Trinity stop on the Luas Green Line. The Dublin Express airport coach stops at Trinity College. Leap card and Dublin public transport has the fares.
• From the end: the foot of Grafton Street is 330 m from the Trinity stop, and the St Stephen’s Green stop, at the top of the street, is on the same Green Line. The Dawson stop on Dawson Street is the nearest to Kildare Street.
• In reverse: start at the Green’s Luas stop and walk down Grafton Street to Trinity, but the Book of Kells slot and the National Museum’s 10:00 opening fit better the way round above.

What to do with the rest of the day

• The old city: the medieval Dublin walk starts on Dame Street, 510 m from the end of this one, and runs to the Guinness Storehouse.
• The books: Book of Kells tickets says what the €25 ticket adds over the €19 one.
• The museums: museums in Dublin separates the free ones from the paid, and free things to do in Dublin lists what costs nothing.
• Guided walks: Dublin walking tours compares the free, literary and pub walks.
• The days: 3 days in Dublin puts Trinity and the south centre on day one, and what to book before you go to Dublin has the closed days for every sight.
• Where to sleep: hotels near Temple Bar lists hotels beside Grafton Street, and where to stay in Dublin compares the areas.

Common questions

How long is the Georgian Dublin walk?

4.1 km from Trinity College to the foot of Grafton Street, measured along the streets: about an hour and ten minutes of walking. The Upper Merrion Street detour adds 0.55 km. The visits fill a day: the Old Library takes 45 to 90 minutes, the National Gallery an hour or more, and the Museum of Literature Ireland one to two hours.

Which day is best for the Georgian Dublin walk?

Saturday. Oscar Wilde House at 1 Merrion Square North is open to the public at weekends only, the National Museum opens at 10:00 on Saturdays but at 13:00 on Sundays and Mondays, and the National Gallery, the Book of Kells and the Museum of Literature Ireland are open.

Is the Georgian Dublin walk free?

The streets, Merrion Square Park, St Stephen's Green, the National Gallery's permanent collection, the National Museum of Ireland and the National Library's Yeats exhibition cost nothing. The Old Library at Trinity is €19 (€25 with the Red Pavilion), Oscar Wilde House €12, the Museum of Literature Ireland from €16.50 and the Little Museum of Dublin €18.

What do I need to book for the walk?

The Book of Kells, which is a timed ticket at Trinity and is not refundable. The Little Museum of Dublin runs by guided tour and says its tours book up quickly. The Museum of Literature Ireland sells timed tickets online. Oscar Wilde House takes walk-ins at the door, and the National Gallery and the National Museum need no booking.

Can you go inside Leinster House?

Not as a visitor. The Oireachtas says tours of Leinster House are limited to those sponsored by a TD or Senator, and that public and walk-up tours are not available. The building is seen from Kildare Street and across the lawn from Merrion Street.

Where does the walk start and finish?

It starts at Trinity College, 150 m from the Trinity stop on the Luas Green Line, and finishes at the foot of Grafton Street, 330 m from the same stop. The medieval Dublin walk starts on Dame Street, 510 m on.