GUIDE TO DUBLIN, IRELAND

Can you confine 24 hours in the life of a city to a book that is nearly as vast as the universe? Well, James Joyce did just that to Dublin in Ulysses. Today, Dubliners, as well as scores of tourists, celebrate the famous novel on Bloomsday. It is but one of the countless attractions of this city, one of the most vibrant capital cities of Europe.
Dublin is the focal point for the entire Republic of Ireland. This city of one million people (nearly a third of the Republic's population ) boasts an exceptional history, a fascinating present, and look forwards to an excellent future. Dublin is overflowing with impressive monuments of the past, and its present and future look promising because of the people and the country's vibrant economy, which, to be fair, is very dependent upon the capital city.
Today's Dublin is the offspring of a rather complicated and turbulent history, which saw nations mix and conquests multiply. The city began as a Celtic settlement, of which the best reminder today is perhaps Dublin's Celtic name, Baile Atha Cliath, coming from a river crossing which the Celts used over 1,000 years ago. Dublin's international name comes from the Vikings, the first to desire the city as their own, so much so that they raided it several times before finally deciding to stay for good. Dubh linn was the name of the port they founded at the junction of the Poddle and Liffey Rivers.
Though the Vikings and the Celtic Irish finally managed to get along with each other by the 11th Century, there would soon come another turning point in the city's history. In the 12th Century, the Normans came to occupy Dublin and its surroundings, the so-called Pale area. From then on, Dublin's fate was reluctantly linked to its larger neighbor, England. Though it has been a nest for Irish revolutionaries ever since, Dublin had its golden age under the British in the 18th Century, when it was second only to London in size and importance. Unsurprisingly, it was in the 18th Century (in 1759, to be precise) when Arthur Guinness founded his world-famous brewery.
The mid-1800s brought the disastrous Irish Famine, and Dublin did not come away unscathed, though it was still better off than the rest of the country. Throughout the entire 19th Century and the first decades of the 20th Century, Dublin was the hub of anti-British resentment, which at first brought it disappointment and long years of decline. This was because of the 1798 uprising against the British that quickly failed. As a result, London dissolved the Irish Parliament and then enforced a union between the two opposing countries. Step by step, however, the Irish activists were forcing positive changes, not only through politics directly, but also in the fields of literature and the arts. It was in Dublin where Douglas Hyde started the Gaelic League, which in turn spurred on the so-called Celtic Revival with W.B. Yeats perhaps its greatest name.
In 1916, the streets of Dublin witnessed a battle for the future of the country. The 1916 Easter Uprising failed, but it still set a historic process in motion that eventuated in the long-awaited independence and proclamation of the Republic. It wasn't until the 1990s, however, that the Republic (together with its capital city) saw times of prosperity. A decade of unprecedented economic growth, record-low unemployment and whopping budget surpluses had its impact on Dublin, which has always been the primary business site of the Republic. Even if the economic pace slackened a bit in the first years of the new millennium, Dublin has not felt it too much. It still attracts numerous immigrants, both from the rest of the country as well as from outside it, looking for jobs (especially in the IT industry) and a better life in one of Europe's premiere cities.