Historical Walking Tours of Dublin

Est. 1986

+353 (0)87 6889412
info@historicaltours.ie Booking

“Outstanding blend of history and humour …
the original Dublin walking tour is still the best”

Irish Times

The Original Tour

In just two hours, this award-winning and entertaining walking tour, conducted by history professionals, explores the main features of Irish history—the English conquest, the influences of the American and French Revolutions, the Great Hunger, the struggle for independence, partition—and concludes with the Northern Ireland peace process and Ireland today post-Brexit.

Where do we go?

‘Grattan’s Parliament’
Thomas Davis statue (Potato Famine)
Temple Bar’s ‘Wall of Fame’
Dublin Society of United Irishmen, Eustace St.
Dublin/Dubh Linn (‘black pool’)
Dublin Castle
City Hall
Wood Quay (Vikings)
Four Courts
Christ Church Cathedral

Meet us at

Grattan statue, on the traffic island, College Green,
(opposite Trinity College front gate)
View map

Summer (May-Sept): daily @ 11am & 3pm
Spring/Autumn (April & Oct): daily @ 11am
Winter (Nov-March): Fri/Sat/Sun @ 11am

Prices

€19, €17 students, under 14s free
Groups sizes capped at 25
Groups: up to 4, €250; 5-25 €300
Above prices include VAT @ 13.5%

Click for private, corporate, college,
schools & customised tours

Booking

Meet our guides

Our Guides are dedicated to the view that the highest academic standards are not incompatible with a pithy and entertaining presentation of the country’s history—to visitors and locals alike.

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Tommy Graham

Tommy (and Van Morrison) at Temple Bar’s ‘Wall of Fame’ of notable Irish rock artists. Originally a sewing factory, the red building became a recording studio in the 1990s, and more recently a music venue.

Tommy Graham founded Historical Walking Tours of Dublin as an undergraduate in 1986. It is now Dublin’s longest established walking tour business. He is the editor and founder (1993) of History Ireland, the country’s only illustrated history magazine and convenor (since 2010) of its ‘live show’ and podcast, the History Ireland Hedge School. He has lectured at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Dublin programme and at Griffith College, and has presented Newstalk radio’s ‘Talking History’.

Donal Fallon

Donal at our starting point—the Grattan statue, on the College Green traffic island, opposite Trinity College front gate. Henry Grattan was MP for Dublin City, 1775-1800, in the old colonial parliament (now the Bank of Ireland) and, after its abolition by the Act of Union in 1800, an MP in Westminster.

Donal Fallon, a history graduate of UCD, has been working with Historical Walking Tours of Dublin since 2010. He is one of the founders of the award-winning blog on Dublin life and culture, ‘Come Here To Me’ (a selection from its archive has recently been published by New Island Books). His recently completed MA thesis on 1930s Dublin and youth criminality will be published shortly. He is a regular contributor to Irish media (print and radio) on Dublin’s history, society and popular culture. He is also the presenter of the popular Three Castles Burning podcast

Sylvie Kleinman

Sylvie at Dublin Castle, built by King John of England in 1204, and seat of English (and later British) administration in Ireland for over 700 years.

Sylvie Kleinman studied history in Ireland and France (she’s a native French speaker) and has long been involved in teaching, researching and public history in Dublin. She’s a regular contributor to History Ireland and currently its TV and radio reviewer. Initially focused on Ireland in the age of the American and French Revolutions, she has a keen interest in the growth of Irish nationalist and patriotic culture. Sylvie endeavours to internationalise how we approach the past in Ireland, reflects on class and gender as much as religious identity, and is very interested in Dublin's history at street level.

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Eoin Walsh

Eoin at Christ Church, the older of Dublin’s two medieval cathedrals. Originally a wooden building, founded in 1030 by Christianized Vikings, it was rebuild in stone in the 1170s by Richard de Clare (better known as ‘Strongbow’), and again in the 1870s by a whiskey distiller, George Roe.

Eoin Walsh has an MA in Modern Irish History from University College Dublin, supervised by Professor Diarmaid Ferriter. He specialises in the Irish revolutionary period (1912-1923) and is the author of Kilkenny: In Times of Revolution, 1900-23. He has published history articles for various newspapers and magazines.

Cathal Brennan

Cathal outside the Irish Film Institute, Temple Bar, originally the Meeting House of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where the black abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, addressed a public meeting in 1845 at the invitation of ‘the Liberator’, Daniel O’Connell.

Cathal Brennan has a BA in History from Trinity College, Dublin where he specialised in early twentieth-century Irish history. He also has third level qualifications in Media Production (Marino College), TV and Video Production (Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology) and Research Skills for TV (Screen Training Ireland). He has worked as a researcher on Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC, RTÉ and NBC versions), The Children of the Revolution (RTÉ) and The Great House Revival (RTÉ). He is co-presenter (with John Dorney) of The Irish History Story podcast

Daragh Fitzgerald

Daragh in front of Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland’s oldest university, founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I of England. The Grattan statue, on the College Green traffic island opposite Trinity front gate, is our starting point.

Daragh Fitzgerald studied English Literature and History at Trinity College, Dublin. He completed a postgrad there, specializing in the revolutionary period (1912-1923). He also has an interest in the great writers who have called Dublin home. He currently lectures in Irish History and Culture at Griffith College, Dublin, and is the editor of ‘Bookworm’ in History Ireland

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