Dublin Castle is a nice way to spend about an hour of your time while in Dublin. It’s not as grand as The Palacio Real in Madrid (which you can read all about here!) and doesn’t even come close to the grandeur of Versailles, but it is a neat place nonetheless. We came here early on a Saturday morning, and while I did get tickets in advance, it was not necessary since there were barely any people here. You are pretty much limited to only seeing the staterooms, and the tower was under construction while we were there, so we weren’t able to see any of that, but it is worth walking around for sure. They do give you an extremely detailed guidebook with a lot of information and is a very nice keepsake!

You are greeted first by the large staircase leading up to the staterooms. It is bright and impressive, and is supposed to give you the feeling of grandeur, which it most definitely does.

Then you can walk through the different rooms, which are well preserved and painted nicely. Some of the most impressive rooms were The State Corridor and the State Drawing Room.

They had also recently hung a ton of art they had acquired and refurbished and there really was a lot of it. Unfortunately, the hanging was done so recently that there was literally zero information on any of the paintings, so that was a bit of a bummer. I’m convinced that the painting below might be a Caravaggio and they don’t know it yet! Brian does not agree. Either way, it’s definitely Caravaggio-esque!

You are able to go into St. Patrick’s Hall, which is a large room where a lot of state business is carried out. The presidents of Ireland are all inaugurated here, so it definitely had a very special feel to it.

The grounds outside of the castle are lovely as well. We did not spend much time here on this trip, but I did check it out back in 2012, so here are a few photos from back then.

Dublin Castle, while not super impressive compared to some other European castles and palaces, is definitely a lovely way to spend a morning touring about. Tickets are only 8 Euro for adults, so definitely have a walk through if you can!