Dublin Sightseeing: Open, Closed and Free
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Dublin’s historic core fits inside a twenty five minute walk, which means the sightseeing question here is never how to get between things. It is which of them deserve a ticket, and 2026 has moved two of the answers.
The Long Room, as it is right now
Trinity’s Old Library and the Long Room remain open to visitors until the end of 2027, when the restoration and construction phase begins and the Book of Kells moves to the restored Printing House. What has changed is the contents. The books have been taken out except from the first four bays, and Gaia, Luke Jerram’s seven metre illuminated Earth, hangs in the middle of the hall, with screens along the side showing conservators working on the collection.
So the barrel-vaulted hall is there and you can walk it. The wall of 200,000 spines from the postcards is in storage. Whether that is a disappointment or the more interesting version depends entirely on what you went for, and plenty of people find the near-empty hall with an Earth in it the better room.
Tickets run from €19 for the Book of Kells and Old Library alone over 45 minutes, from €26 for the self-guided Experience including the Red Pavilion exhibitions, from €39 with the Trinity Trails walking tour and from €65 guided in a group capped at 16. Timed entry, and summer slots go one to two weeks out. Book at visittrinity.ie . Trinity was founded in 1592 and is Ireland’s oldest university.
Dublin Castle and the Chester Beatty are both shut
The Dublin Castle campus is closed to the public from 5 May to 31 December 2026 for Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the EU, with more than a hundred official events on site. That is the whole campus, including the through route from Dame Street to Ship Street. The Chester Beatty inside it is closed from 15 June to the end of December 2026. Both reopen in January 2027. The notice is on heritageireland.ie . Plan the afternoon somewhere else; it is a good afternoon for the Liberties.
The Storehouse, described accurately
The Guinness Storehouse is Ireland’s most visited paid attraction and it is not a walk around a production floor. It is a converted fermentation building on the St James’s Gate site, run as a seven storey self-guided experience, finishing with a Guinness or a Guinness 0.0 at the Gravity Bar, Arthur’s Bar or the Guinness Academy. Entry starts at €24 and dynamic pricing pushes the base experience to roughly €30 to €36 on peak weekends, with online consistently cheaper than the gate and slots that do fill. Six different products run from €24 up to €49; the ladder is at guinness-storehouse.com .
Set that expectation and it is still an easy recommendation, particularly the rooftop bar. Go in expecting vats and you will be annoyed for two hours.
The free counterweight is not a consolation prize
The National Museum of Ireland, Archaeology on Kildare Street is free, needs no booking, and holds the bog bodies, the prehistoric gold hoards, the Ardagh Chalice, the Tara Brooch and the Viking Ireland gallery. It is the single best hour in Dublin for what it costs, which is nothing. Decorative Arts and History at Collins Barracks, Benburb Street, Dublin 7 is also free and now holds the Dead Zoo Lab, about 1,300 specimens standing in while the Natural History Museum on Merrion Street stays closed for redevelopment, with an indicative timeline of post-2028. Both on museum.ie .
Add the National Gallery of Ireland, free, with a Caravaggio and a Van Gogh, and IMMA at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, free apart from certain special exhibitions and closed on Mondays.
The two cathedrals, and the Sunday trap
St Patrick’s charges €11.50 adult, €10.00 student and senior, €5.50 child aged 6 to 12 and €31.00 family. Swift was dean here and is buried inside. The catch is Sunday: visitor access is 09:00 to 10:30 and 12:30 to 14:30 only, because there are services at 09:15, 11:15 and 15:15. Turn up at 11:00 on a Sunday and you are going to a service or going away. Hours at stpatrickscathedral.ie .
Christ Church, founded around 1028 by the Hiberno-Norse king Sitric Silkenbeard, is €10 self-guided and €15 guided, the second adding the belfry and its 19 bells. The crypt below is the oldest building still in use in the city.
The walk that costs nothing
Christ Church to Wood Quay, where the Viking excavation of the 1970s uncovered the walled town, past Dublinia at €16 adult, on to St Audoen’s, the only surviving medieval parish church, and down to St Patrick’s. Twenty minutes end to end and about a thousand years of it, free apart from the interiors. Then Georgian Dublin: Merrion Square with the Oscar Wilde statue, Fitzwilliam Square, the doors, and the National Gallery on the square’s west side.
For a guided version with a fixed price, compare Dublin sightseeing tours on GetYourGuide or see what is running on Viator .
The verdict
Two paid tickets is the right number for a short stay: Trinity at €19 or €26, and one of the Storehouse or Kilmainham depending on whether you would rather drink or think. Everything else on Kildare Street and Merrion Square is free and just as good. Work out which guided tours earn their price , then plan the walking around the routes that need no ticket .