Attend a county hurling or Gaelic football match

Ask a local to explain the scoring system — a goal is worth three points, an over-the-bar point is worth one

Experience the atmosphere in a GAA pub before or after a match

Find out which county your nearest campsite is in, and who their biggest rivals are

Time your visit for the championship season, April to July, when inter-county matches are played

The GAA is an amateur association whose players hold down day jobs, and it fills a stadium that holds 82,300 for the All-Ireland finals. Hurling is a field game of ancient Gaelic origin, and CNN once ranked the All-Ireland hurling final second in the world among sporting events you have to see live — behind the Olympics, ahead of the World Cup. The museum at Croke Park explains the scoring, three points for a goal under the bar and one for a point over it, but the only way to understand the thing is to sit at a championship match between April and July and know who the county you are in cannot stand.

Croke Park and a County Match: The GAA

Start at the Martello Tower in Sandycove, where Ulysses opens with Stephen Dedalus and Buck Mulligan — now the James Joyce Museum, holding his guitar, cigar case and death mask

At Sweny's Pharmacy on Lincoln Place, buy a bar of the lemon soap Bloom walks out with in Lotus Eaters — it is a volunteer bookshop now, and they read Ulysses aloud in it

At Davy Byrne's on Duke Street, order Bloom's lunch from Lestrygonians — a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy, still on the menu

At Glasnevin, find the O'Connell Tower inside the Finglas Road gate, where Bloom attends Paddy Dignam's funeral in Hades — Collins, de Valera and Joyce's own father are buried here

Ulysses follows Leopold Bloom through Dublin on 16 June 1904 across 18 episodes. The physical route — from the Martello Tower in Sandycove to the National Library, Davy Byrne's pub, Sweny's Pharmacy and Glasnevin Cemetery — can be walked in a full day. Most of the buildings Bloom passes still stand — though not 7 Eccles Street, his own house, which was demolished; its front door is on show at the James Joyce Centre.

Joyce's Dublin: The Bloomsday Walk

Order a pint at Mulligan's on Poolbeg Street, there since 1854, mentioned in James Joyce's Counterparts

Tour Rascals Brewing Company in Inchicore, an independent craft brewery founded in 2014, minutes from Kilmainham Gaol

Book a table at Chapter One on Parnell Square, a two-Michelin-star restaurant helmed by chef Mickael Viljanen

Pick up ingredients at George's Street Arcade to cook your own version back at the van

Dublin's food runs from one extreme to the other inside a couple of square miles. Mulligan's has been on Poolbeg Street since 1854, on a licence going back to 1782 and Joyce put it into Counterparts; you go there for the stout, not for innovation. Chapter One on Parnell Square holds two Michelin stars under Mickael Viljanen and is as serious as Irish cooking gets. Rascals in Inchicore is the third thing — an independent brewery founded in 2014, minutes from Kilmainham Gaol. And the cheapest way to eat well is to buy at George's Street Arcade and cook it at the van.

Mulligan's to Chapter One: Dublin's Old and New Kitchens

Walk among Rowan Gillespie's seven bronzes and find the dog at the back of the group, as gaunt as the people it follows, all of them facing the river

Find out about the Perseverance, one of the first famine ships out of Dublin in 1846 — her captain was 74 and left an office job to sail her

Board the Jeanie Johnston — the original made sixteen crossings between 1848 and 1855 with some 2,500 emigrants and never lost a passenger, which was not the norm

From the Jeanie Johnston's deck, look back at the quay from roughly the height an emigrant would have seen it

On Custom House Quay beside the Liffey, seven bronze figures by sculptor Rowan Gillespie trudge toward the water — emaciated men, women, and a starving dog. Unveiled in 1997, they stand on the departure point of the Perseverance, one of the first famine ships to leave Dublin in 1846, captained by a 74-year-old man who quit his office job to make the crossing. All his passengers arrived in America safely. Moored a few steps away is the Jeanie Johnston, a replica of a famine-era ship that made 16 transatlantic crossings between 1847 and 1855 without losing a single passenger.

The Famine Memorial and the Jeanie Johnston

Work through all twenty themed galleries, from migration since 500 AD to the diaspora today

Find the galleries on criminal transportation and on Irish involvement in foreign conflicts

Trace one family name through the emigration records in the genealogy centre

Look at the vaults themselves, built as a bonded customs warehouse from 1820

EPIC opened in May 2016 in the vaults of the CHQ Building — a bonded customs warehouse begun in 1820 by John Rennie and completed by Thomas Telford — and tells the story of the Irish diaspora across twenty themed galleries, running from migration patterns since 500 AD through the Famine, transportation, missionary work and the effects of Irish involvement in other people's wars. It was voted Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction at the World Travel Awards three years running, in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

EPIC: The Museum of the People Who Left

Go to 15 Henrietta Street, the restored Georgian house Na Píobairí Uilleann has worked from since 2007

Watch a piper work the bellows, the bag, the chanter and the regulators at once, and count how many limbs are busy

Find out why bellows-blown pipes hold their tuning when mouth-blown pipes do not

Sit in on a recital or a class — both run here and are open to the public

Find out how Breandán Breathnach, Seán Reid and Séamus Mac Mathúna called the pipers together at Bettystown in 1968, and listen to Séamus Ennis or Leo Rowsome afterwards

The uilleann pipes are not blown. They came up in the early 18th century alongside the bellows-driven Northumbrian smallpipes and the Scottish Lowland pipes, all of them quieter and sweeter than the mouth-blown sets before them — but no other bellows pipe carries the uilleann pipes' regulators. A small bellows is strapped round the waist and the right arm, and pumping it fills the bag clamped under the other elbow — so dry air reaches the reeds instead of wet breath, which keeps the instrument in tune and leaves the player free to sing. There is a two-octave chanter, drones, and regulators struck with the wrist to lay chords under the tune. It is the most complicated bagpipe ever built, and it nearly died out. In 1968 Breandán Breathnach wrote to about a hundred pipers at home and abroad and called them to a gathering at Bettystown; Na Píobairí Uilleann came out of that meeting and works from a restored Georgian house at 15 Henrietta Street.

Na Píobairí Uilleann: The Pipes With the Bellows

In Merrion Square Park, look closely at the Wilde statue — he reclines on a Wicklow quartz boulder, torso of green nephrite jade and pink thulite, legs of Norwegian blue pearl granite, shoes of black Indian charnockite

Walk to 21 Westland Row — a ten-minute walk from Merrion Square — where a plaque marks the house where Wilde was actually born on 16 October 1854; the building is now part of Trinity College Dublin's Oscar Wilde Centre

At Marsh's Library on St Patrick's Close, look into the three wire reading cages, in use since the 1770s to stop readers walking off with the books

Go inside St Patrick's Cathedral and find Swift's grave slab and the Latin epitaph he wrote for himself — W. B. Yeats put it into English and called it the greatest epitaph in history

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854 and grew up at 1 Merrion Square — the square's park now holds his reclining statue, built out of coloured stones from three continents. Two streets away, Marsh's Library has stood since 1707 as Ireland's oldest public library, with three wire reading cages in use since the 1770s to stop readers pocketing the books; Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Patrick's next door, was a reader here in its early years.

Oscar Wilde, Marsh's Library and Dublin's Literary Monuments

Attend a trad session at Gus O'Connor's, Doolin's oldest pub, trading since 1832 and a music session fixture since Gus O'Connor's own tenure from 1956

Attend a session at McDermott's, in the same family since 1867, or McGann's, bought by the McGann brothers in 1975

During a session, identify by ear the fiddle, bodhrán, tin whistle, and uilleann pipes as musicians take turns leading a tune

Follow session etiquette for a full night — applaud between tunes rather than during them, and stay quiet through a slow air or solo song

Listen from just outside the circle at a third venue — the seats inside it belong to the players

Doolin's three pubs — Gus O'Connor's (trading since 1832), McGann's (bought from the Laffertys in 1975 by the brothers Tony and Tommy McGann), and McDermott's (in the same family since 1867) — host live trad sessions most nights of the year. Doolin has been a magnet for traditional musicians since long before it became a tourist destination.

Doolin's Three Pubs: O'Connor's, McGann's and McDermott's

Take the seasonal ferry from Kilrush Marina across the Shannon Estuary to Scattery Island, a crossing of about 2.5km, roughly half an hour each way

Find Scattery's round tower, entered at ground level rather than high in the wall, standing over St Senan's 6th-century monastery

Walk between the ruins of Scattery's monastic churches, founded around 534 AD by St. Senan and once numbering five separate churches on the island

At the island's south end, find the remains of the Napoleonic gun battery, one of six built along the estuary against a French landing built to watch over the Shannon's shipping lane

Before or after the crossing, walk Kilrush Marina and check the tide gauge — the Shannon Estuary has one of the largest tidal ranges of any Irish estuary

Scattery Island sits 3km out from Kilrush in the mouth of the Shannon Estuary, reachable only by boat. St. Senan founded a monastery here around 534 AD, and its round tower, its doorway at ground level rather than high in the wall, is visible from the mainland long before you land.