Most visitors to Dublin spend their time in the city centre and never make it south along the coast - which means they miss some of the genuinely best scenery and some of the most interesting stories the county has to offer. This tour changes that.
Your guide Marina is a Dublin native, and she knows this stretch of coastline the way you only can if you’ve grown up with it. She’ll take you and your group from Dun Laoghaire harbour all the way through to Dalkey over about three and a half hours, covering the history, the landscape, and the characters that make this part of the world worth knowing.
You’ll pass the Forty Foot - Dublin’s famous open-air sea-swimming spot, open year-round regardless of weather - go inside the James Joyce Tower and Museum, which features in the opening pages of Ulysses, and finish up in Dalkey, a village with Viking roots that now has a well-earned reputation for good food and a lively atmosphere. Seals are often spotted at Colliemore Harbour, and you’ll see three of Dalkey’s famous seven castles on the walk.
This is a private tour for your group only. The pace is relaxed, with plenty of time for photos and questions. A moderate level of fitness is needed since you’re walking for most of the day. If you’re coming off a cruise, the meeting point is a two-minute walk from Dun Laoghaire port.
Meeting point: Outside Hartley’s Restaurant, part of Dun Laoghaire DART Station. For cruise passengers, this is a two-minute walk from the port.
The DART is one of the great pleasures of a visit to Dublin, and this tour makes good use of it. The DART line runs along the coast from Malahide in the north all the way to Greystones in the south, with Dun Laoghaire and Dalkey both on the route. If you want to extend your day, you could take the DART further south to Bray after the tour finishes - it’s a short ride and a beautiful coastal town in its own right.
The Forty Foot is a serious swimming spot, not just a tourist curiosity. Year-round swimmers go in every single morning, and there are people in the water on Christmas Day. The water is cold by most standards - around 8-10 degrees Celsius in winter and up to 16-17 degrees in a warm summer. If you want to take a dip, bring a towel and a swimming layer; Marina can factor in a few minutes for it.
Dalkey village is worth staying in for a meal after the tour ends. The village has a good selection of restaurants and pubs, several of which are genuinely excellent. It’s the kind of place where locals eat rather than just tourists, which tells you something. Marina will point you toward the right spots.
The James Joyce Tower was actually a Martello tower, one of many built along the Irish coast in the early 1800s. They were constructed as a defensive measure against a potential Napoleonic invasion that never came. Joyce stayed in the Sandycove tower for a short time in 1904 and used it as the setting for the opening scene of Ulysses. It’s now a museum dedicated to his life and work, and the view from the roof is one of the best along this stretch of coast.
Sunday mornings are a particularly good time for this tour. Moran Park has a farmer’s market on Sundays, and Marina builds in extra time there for the group. It’s a nice slice of local life - a good mix of food stalls, plants, and the kind of neighbourly atmosphere that makes the coastal suburbs of Dublin feel like a different world from the city centre.