Haunted Dublin Walking Tour

About This Tour

Dublin has a long memory, and a fair bit of that memory is distinctly unsettling. This two-hour evening walk starts in the heart of Temple Bar and moves into the old medieval city, taking you down cobbled lanes and alleyways, through lesser-seen corners of famous landmarks, and into forgotten pockets of the city that most visitors walk straight past.

Your guide is a nationally accredited tour guide with a clear love of both the history and the storytelling. Along the way you’ll cover Bram Stoker’s Dublin and the real-life inspirations behind Dracula, horrifying medieval crime and punishment, grave robbing and body snatching, the banshee and the darker threads of Irish mythology, the Hellfire Club, witchcraft in Irish history, and more than a few serial killers, poltergeists and headless horsemen for good measure.

The guide’s approach is warm and engaging rather than gratuitously grim - which is probably why this tour has earned a perfect 5.0 from over 600 reviews. Whether you’re seriously into Irish history or just looking for a different way to see the city after dark, it works either way.

What’s Included

• Two-hour guided walk of haunted Dublin with a nationally accredited tour guide

What’s Not Included

• Snacks

Itinerary

1. Temple Bar - Meet in the heart of Dublin’s famous quarter. (10 min)
2. Dublin Castle - Notorious home of imperial rule for centuries, and one-time workplace of Bram Stoker himself. (15 min)
3. Victorian Music Hall - A famous venue with its own history of ghostly goings-on. (10 min)
4. The Oldest Theatre in Ireland - A building steeped in stories. (10 min)
5. Hell - In the shadow of Dublin’s oldest cathedral once stood a sordid warren of streets known locally as “Hell” - playground to the rich and powerful, home of brothels and booze-houses. You’ll hear about the characters of this raucous neighbourhood, some of whom are still reputedly felt around these streets. (15 min)
6. St. Patrick’s Cathedral area - Stories of ghostly goings-on at nearby Marsh’s Library, and tales from the Liberties and the notorious “four corners of Hell”. (10 min)
7. Marsh’s Library - The oldest public library in Ireland, tucked in the shadow of St Patrick’s Cathedral. (10 min)
8. Hidden church graveyard - The ruins of an old graveyard down a dark laneway, right in the city centre. (10 min)
9. 1916 garrison - One of the garrisons of the Easter Rising, on the west side of St Stephen’s Green. (10 min)
10. St. Stephen’s Green - The most famous of Dublin’s great Georgian squares, visited towards the end of the tour. (10 min)

Getting There

Meet outside the Old Storehouse Bar and Restaurant at 3 Crown Alley, Temple Bar. Look for the guide with the green umbrella and name tag.

Good to Know

• Maximum group size is 30 travellers
• Wheelchair accessible; transport options nearby are also wheelchair accessible
• Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
• Service animals are welcome
• Public transport options available nearby

Local Tips

Marsh’s Library is worth coming back to in daylight. Your guide introduces it on the tour, but during opening hours you can go inside - it’s the oldest public library in Ireland, opened in 1707, and still looks almost exactly as it did then. The cages where scholars were once locked in with rare manuscripts are still there.

Wear comfortable shoes. The route takes you over cobblestones, uneven surfaces and some of the older laneways in the city. The kind of footwear that feels fine walking on flat pavement can make itself known pretty quickly on Crown Alley or down near the cathedral.

Book ahead for popular dates. With a maximum group size of 30 and a 5.0 rating from over 600 reviews, this tour fills up - particularly on weekends and around Halloween, when demand in Dublin gets serious. Booking a day or two before you want to go is usually fine outside peak season; don’t leave it to the last minute in October.

The area around St. Patrick’s Cathedral repays a slow walk on its own. The Liberties - the neighbourhood to the west and south of the cathedral - is one of Dublin’s oldest quarters and has been going through a quiet revival. After the tour, it’s worth doubling back during the day to see what’s there in the light.

Ask your guide about the Bram Stoker connection to Dublin Castle. Stoker worked there as a civil servant before he wrote Dracula, and the stories about what he observed during that time are among the more interesting threads your guide pulls on. It’s a side of the Dracula origin story that most people haven’t heard.

Nearby on IrelandMe

• Irish Revolutionary Walking Tour of Dublin - three hours through Dublin’s 1913-1923 revolutionary history with a postgraduate historian
• Jewish Dublin History Walking Tour - two hours through the old Jewish Quarter, uncovering a chapter of Dublin history most visitors miss
• Historic Dublin: Exclusive Private Tour with a Local - a private two-hour walk through the medieval core, tailored to your interests