Dear dirty Dublin

More European than English, the streets of this 1,000-year-old city ring with the lilt of endless cheerfulness. Abandon Temple Bar, The Globe's JOHN DOYLE advises, and discover Grafton Street, where the politicians, poets, playwrights and plain people meet.

"The crowds in the Dublin streets are vastly different from English crowds. You do not see the haggard money look that is becoming characteristic of all English cities. There is more laughter. There is no painful rushing about. There is a cheerful ease about Dublin, a casual good temper, which makes it difficult to realize the dark times through which this city has passed."

That's how the charming English travel writer H.V. Morton described Dublin in 1930 and, to everyone's delight, very little has changed in the decades since then.

Ireland is enjoying an economic boom, but that "haggard money look" is still happily missing in the capital. Dublin is one of the most cheerful places on the planet, a city devoted to talk and fun and frolics. It is not - be warned now - a place for people dismayed by rambunctious good cheer, mischief and mockery. It has been called "strumpet city," "dear dirty Dublin," and in a once-popular play, a character proclaimed that Dublin would form the streets of Paradise. The character was the worse - or the better - for alcohol at the time.

Dublin is a city in which landmarks are better known by their mocking nicknames than by their official names. It is a place where language is cherished, writers are idolized and almost every pub contains a battalion of the standing army of Irish poets.

The Shelbourne Hotel Photo: Leonardo Mediabank

But Dublin is first an ancient city. More than 1,000 years old, it is a Viking city, a medieval city, a Georgian city, a Victorian city, a modern metropolis and - always - a European city.

The first-time visitor from Canada, thinking vaguely of Dublin as another city in what the school geography books called "the British Isles" might expect Dublin to be something like a provincial English city, more linked to London than to Paris, Brussels or Lisbon. That would be the first mistake. Ireland's and Dublin's history is one long, often cantankerous and sometimes bloody quarrel with London. A Catholic and capital city, Dublin, like the rest of Ireland, has long had stronger ties with Catholic Europe than with England.

Only the weather is English - it changes all the time and sometimes in midsummer there are days that are cool and filled with rain showers. Often, however, the early evening is best, when the sky clears and the sun picks out the pockets of colour in the streets of gaily painted Georgian doors, the Wicklow mountains are visible in the distance, and you want to walk endlessly through those broad and narrow streets where laughter, banter and arguments come falling out of pub doorways.

Dublin is a city for walking. It's a compact capital, divided by the river Liffey into a north and south side. To Dubliners, the division is large, but to a visitor, it is all one - a city of talk and fun.

Walk along O'Connell Street, the broad and bustling main street that stretches north from the Liffey and just by paying attention to the statues and monuments that line the middle of the street, you get a sense of Dublin's history and delight in language and mischief.

First, there's a statue of Daniel O'Connell himself, known as The Liberator because he successfully led the movement to give Catholics the right to vote and own land.

Then, there's a depiction of Anna Livia, goddess and guiding spirit of the river Liffey. She's portrayed as a beauty reclining in water. Locals refer to her as "the floozie in the Jacuzzi," or, if you're a Northsider, "The hoor in the sewer." At the end of the street stands Charles Parnell, beloved leader of a doomed independence movement more than a century ago.

If you do walk along O'Connell Street, turn off and walk up Henry Street, one of the main, all-pedestrian shopping streets. Walk past the department stores, boutiques and book shops until you come to Moore Street, one of Dublin's oldest market streets. There you'll hear the hawkers cry out the prices and bargains, "Oran-ges, four for a pound!" "Fresh straw-berries, a pound the punnet!" as they have since Jonathan Swift's day and before. Find your way to the pedestrian-only Halfpenny Bridge off Henry Street, cross the Liffey, look up at the medieval Christ Church Cathedral and know that in its shadow are the remains of the Viking fort founded there 1,000 years ago. Walk under the arch and down the narrow alleys to Temple Bar, the bustling centre of Dublin's contemporary nightlife.

The Temple Bar Hotel Photo: Leonardo Mediabank

If you want to linger in Temple Bar, you might find yourself surrounded by gangs of English revellers over for a crazy weekend. Keep going and you'll find where the real Dubliners work and play. Crossing Dame Street, look left at Trinity College, 600 years old and housing the Book of Kells. Nod hello to Edmund Burke, whose statue stands outside. At the foot of Grafton Street, stop at the statue of Molly Malone ("In Dublin's fair city/ Where the girls are so pretty/I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone") and be aware that the buxom woman with her hawker's wagon is known to the locals as "The tart with the cart."

Press on up Grafton Street ("Met her today point blank in Grafton Street. The crowd brought us together," James Joyce wrote in Portrait of The Artist as A Young Man.) Turn right at Wicklow Street and look for the International Bar. Sit and drink for a while in the tiny, quiet interior, staring up at the massive, elaborate wood carving that is the bar itself. Listen to the lilt of the talk.

Back again to Grafton Street, watch and listen to the buskers and the pavement artists as middle-class ladies walk away pleased with their purchases from the Brown Thomas store. Follow them to Bewley's Oriental Café. There, have coffee and cherry buns - the best in the world - while around you sit the politicians, poets, playwrights and the plain people of the city that make it magical.

Walk past the outdoor cafés and flower sellers and up Grafton Street again until you find Harry Street. Look over at McDaid's pub - don't go in, it's already full of young tourists who've read all the books - and know that from its doors there tumbled on many nights J.P. Donleavy, Brendan Behan, Flann O'Brien and countless others who kept the literary tradition alive. Arrive at St. Stephen's Green, loveliest of city parks, and pause by the duck pond crossing over toward Newman House, where Joyce himself was schooled.

But wherever you go, just listen as you look because the sound of endless chatter and cheerfulness is the natural condition of this old and glorious city.

Best and worst time to visit

May and June are the best of the summer months. Dublin's summer weather is unreliable, but those months are the sunniest and Dublin has a spring in its step as the Joyceans gather for Bloomsday, the Spanish students arrive to learn English, the pubs and restaurants set their tables outside and every waiter, bartender and shopkeeper is cheerfully expecting a great summer of tourism.

Late September and October are also preferable. The city's students are back from their summers abroad and they make the city seem entirely young. The Dublin Theatre Festival creates a buzz in October and, Dublin being a compact city with dozens excellent theatres in close proximity, it's a fine, stress-free festival full of the best of new Irish works and visiting companies.

A great 24 hours

Many Dublin hotels are expensive, although the tourist board can find lodging to accommodate almost any budget. If you can afford it, stay at the Shelbourne Hotel, (27 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2), an 18th-century hotel that's centrally located, swank and confident of its timeless sophistication.

A good budget hotel is Kilronan House (70 Adelaide Rd., Dublin 2), near the city centre. Breakfast at Bewleys Oriental Café on Grafton Street and have your fill of Irish bacon, sausage and eggs with brown bread. You won't need lunch.

Amble through the grounds of Trinity College toward the Pearse Street railway station and take the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) to Howth, the fishing village at the north end of Dublin Bay. Walk around Howth Head - it takes about an hour - looking down at the Irish Sea and the old and new mansions of the Dublin rich. Remember that in Ulysses it was in the magenta heather on Howth Head that Molly Bloom gave Leopold the sweet cake from her mouth.

Travel back to city centre by bus (upstairs on the bus for the best views of the seafront) and visit the Dublin Writers Museum (18-19 Parnell Sq. N., Dublin 1) and walk over to the Shelbourne for their elegant, old-fashioned afternoon tea of pastries and tiny sandwiches.

In the evening, take in the performance at the Abbey Theatre (26 Lower Abbey St. Dublin 1), the national theatre of Ireland founded by W.B. Yeats, John M. Synge and other Irish writers.

Have a post-theatre dinner at Trocerdero restaurant (South Andrew Street Dublin 2), long-established haunt of the theatre crowd. (The washrooms have cold cream for late-arriving actors to remove their makeup.) Enjoy the seafood or steaks and have a late-night drink at one of the nearby Old Dublin bars - the Stag's Head (Dame Court, Dublin 2), O'Neills (Suffolk Street, Dublin 2), or the Long Hall (South Great George's Street).

Shopping

Dublin isn't a cheap shopping experience. The economic boom called the Celtic Tiger has made it more expensive to stay, eat, drink and shop in the city, although it is still cheaper than London. It is a great city for buying books.

Eason's (Upper Abbey Street, Dublin 1) and other branches stock a vast array of Irish-related books, magazines and newspapers. Hodges Figges (Dawson Street, Dublin 2) is one of the best stocked general-interest bookstores and is littered with excellent secondhand and antiquarian bookstores.

Thomas Street, near both St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christ Church, is filled with antique stores. The contents vary from Irish craft furniture and art to exquisite art deco pieces. The best items to bring home from Ireland are Irish woollens - Dublin Woollen Mills (Lower Ormond Quay) and Blarney Woollen Mills (Nassau Street) offer a dazzling array of sweaters and just about anything you can make with wool.

Kilkenny Shop (Nassau Street, Dublin 2) is the Dublin outlet of the legendary Kilkenny Design Centre and has the best in Irish design, clothes and ceramics. Clery's (O'Connel Street, Dublin 1) is an Irish-owned department store that stocks lots of Irish-made linens and clothes, often at prices lower than the chic shopping areas.

Best street food

Street food is not abundant in Dublin. The mobile fish-and-chip vans that dot the city as the bars close are best avoided, but if you can find one of the sellers of baked potatoes - loaded with toppings - who occasionally show up near the popular bars, you're in for an ancient Dublin tradition. Pub food varies from the stale cheese sandwiches of some establishments to the wonderful plain meals - meat, potatoes and veg - of long-established eating pubs.

Absolutely must not miss

See the Book of Kells, on view at Trinity College. The Book of Kells was written around the year 800 and is one of the most beautifully illuminated manuscripts in the world. It contains the four gospels, preceded by prefaces. It is written on vellum and contains Latin text of the gospels accompanied by magnificent and intricate decorations. It is an awe-inspiring reminder that, once upon a time, Ireland really was the Island of Saints and Scholars.

Most overrated

The Clarence Hotel (6-8 Wellington Quay), with its bars, nightclub and restaurant, is owned by the members of the band U2 and it's on the must-see list for many younger visitors. It's an ordinary, unexciting place, overpriced and teeming with poseurs who've contributed less to the Dublin scene than the buskers on Grafton Street.

If you go

First read the Dublin writers - Swift, Joyce, Yeats, Beckett, right up to the very-much-alive-and-living-in-Dublin Roddy Doyle and Seamus Heaney. Try Guinness before you go - it can be hard on you if it's your first time. The Irish Tourist Board, (800) 223-6470 is a vastly experienced and friendly group. The Dublin Tourism Centre (Suffolk Street, Dublin 2) has an on-line reservations system (e-mail reservations@dublintourism.com) and an excellent Web site. The Irish Times newspaper is not only one of the world's great papers, but has a great on-line version that has masses of information about accommodation, shopping and events in Dublin, plus a Tourist Advice section. The paper's Web site is www.ireland.com.

John Doyle, The Globe's television critic, was raised in Dublin.