Still riding on the back of the roaring success of the 'Celtic Tiger' economy, 21st-century Dublin is a city on the rise and rise. Business in many sectors continues to boom and the city overflows with tourists, who flock to the 'party capital of Europe' to sample the infamous Irish craic (fun).
This vibrant, fun-loving city on the River Liffey is full of atmospheric pubs where the craic is spun with a well-polished finish and the streets echo with the ghosts of artistic luminaries such as James Joyce and W B Yeats. Visit between April and October, when the weather is at its best, with July and August the busiest months, or throughout the year for the numerous festivals, cultural and religious events and sporting fixtures.
Sightseeing highlights include the early medieval Christchurch Cathedral (Dublin's oldest building), the cobbled streets of Temple Bar, Phoenix Park (Europe's largest urban park), the National Gallery of Ireland and the treasures of the National Museum of Ireland, containing Europe's finest collection of prehistoric gold artefacts. A plethora of buildings and museums (including Trinity College, Ireland's oldest university, and the Guinness Storehouse) convey a real sense of living history.
Indeed, it is this living history, present in the media of music and literature, which has brought Dublin such international acclaim. In the 20th century, a string of poets and writers immortalised the city, none more so than James Joyce whose seminal Ulysses (1922), which depicts one day in Dublin, is considered by many literary critics to be the greatest novel of that century.
But things have not always been so rosy for this thousand-year-old city on the east coast of Ireland. For much of the first half of the 20th century, strife and unrest tore Dublin apart as it was involved in a messy and violent divorce from Britain.
Today's new Dublin, the 'capital of Euro-cool', continues to boom, and boasts one of the youngest populations in Europe, who frequent its funky bars, sophisticated restaurants and rebuilt city streets.
However, despite the recent changes, the city and its people have remained the same. Alongside trend-setting bars, clubs and designer shops it is still possible to find quiet, traditional pubs, nostalgic museums and busking fiddlers in Temple Bar, even horse-drawn carts clip-clopping along cobbled streets. It is a fascinating blend of tradition and contemporary Irish life. No wonder, in Dublin today, Irish eyes are well and truly smiling.
