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Jewish History Private Dublin Walking Tour with Local Guide
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From €20 per person
Dublin’s Jewish community was small in numbers but outsized in influence - and this private walking tour, led by an expert guide with over a decade of experience, traces that history through the actual streets where it happened.
You start around the South Circular Road, where a vibrant immigrant community once thrived, and work your way through the Portobello district. Early on, your guide introduces you to the Herzog family: Isaac Halevi Herzog, known as the “Sinn Féin Rabbi,” who became the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland, and his son Chaim - the Dublin-born boy who went on to become the sixth President of Israel. Their family home still stands on Victoria Street.
The political thread running through this history is remarkable. You’ll hear the story of the Briscoes - Robert Briscoe, IRA gun-runner turned first Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin, and his son Ben, who continued a political dynasty that’s hard to match anywhere in the world. The tour also covers the Jewish trade unionists and anti-fascists who fought for workers’ rights in the 1930s, and the life of Harry Kernoff, the radical artist whose woodcuts and portraits captured working-class Dublin and whose studio became a gathering point for the city’s literary and political circles.
Literature gets its proper place here too. You’ll visit landmarks connected to Leopold Bloom, the Jewish protagonist of James Joyce’s Ulysses, including his fictional birthplace on Upper Clanbrassil Street. The tour ends with a quiet moment at the Stolpersteine on Donore Avenue - the stumbling stones that serve as memorial plaques honouring Holocaust victims with direct Dublin connections, among them Ettie Steinberg.
Book for a Sunday if you want to include the Irish Jewish Museum. The museum on Walworth Road is only open on Sundays between 11:00am and 2:30pm. It’s a small but genuinely moving collection, and worth building your visit around if you can. A weekday tour is still rich and worthwhile, but you’ll miss the museum itself.
This part of Dublin repays slow walking. The Portobello and South Circular Road area is one of the quieter, more residential parts of the city - not a tourist district - and that’s exactly what gives it its character. You’re walking through a neighbourhood that looks much as it did in the mid-20th century. Take the time to look at the architecture and the streetscape, not just the specific sites your guide points out.
The Herzog and Briscoe stories alone are worth the five hours. The connections between a small immigrant community in south Dublin and the politics of Irish independence, the founding of Israel, and city hall are genuinely extraordinary. If you’re interested in Irish history at all, this adds a dimension to it that very few tours even touch on.
Wear comfortable shoes and bring water. Five hours is a proper walk and the South Circular Road area involves some ground covering. It’s not strenuous, but you’ll feel it in good shoes much less than in bad ones.
If you have any personal connection to this history, mention it to your guide before you start. The tour is private and bespoke - your guide can tailor the emphasis if there’s a particular thread that matters most to you.