The Sea: Dublin's Best Coastal Walk. Dun Laoghaire to Killiney

The Sea Tour

Welcome to Dublin's Southside, where the accents are posher and the house prices are scary. This walk takes you through the part of Dublin where I don't live (and probably never will, unless this blog really takes off).

You'll start in Dún Laoghaire harbour, walking along the seafront. Make a quick detour into the delightful village of Glasthule, before passing what I confidently call Dublin's ugliest building on your way to Sandycove and the famous Forty Foot swimming spot.

Then it's on to Dalkey, where the rich and famous of Ireland live. Finally, you'll climb up to Killiney, Dublin's answer to Beverly Hills.

Quick Details

• The Sea Tour
• Distance: 9km
• Time: About 3 hours including stops for lunch
• Difficulty: Easy. It's all paved paths. The climb to Killiney is uphill but not bad.
• Best Day: Sundays for the market in People's Park.
• I do a guided walk of this route on Sundays. Book Here.
• Start Point: Dún Laoghaire DART station
• End Point: Killiney DART station or Dalkey for the short version.

Getting There

While it can be entertaining listening to visitors attempting our impossible Irish language pronunciation, since you're my readers, I'll help you out. It's pronounced "Done Leary". I'm going to use DL to save my fingers, I'm fluent in Irish but it's still a tough type.

By DART

Take the DART from the city. The train creeps past Dublin Docklands, home of the European HQs of many tax wary US corporations, then under the glass sombrero looking Aviva Stadium (where our rugby team regularly destroys England's hopes & our soccer team never even have a hope), and then a few minutes later, it's adios city and hola sea.

By Boat

Take the Dublin Bay Cruise from Howth. You can do my Howth Cliff Walk in the morning (those views!), then hop on the hour cruise across the bay. You'll see Dublin from a completely different angle, with the Wicklow Mountains as your backdrop. The boat docks right in Dún Laoghaire harbor, where the Sea walk begins.

Local Tips

• Boats run April to October, but double check!
• Book ahead if it's going to be one of our two sunny days of the year
• DART trains run every 15 minutes
• Get a Leap Visitor Card for the Dart if you're here for a few days
• This walk is best done on Sundays when the Farmers Market is on and I do my guided tour.

Dun Laoghaire

Done Leary Done Properly

Dun Laoghaire is a harbour town that used to be called Kingstown back in the bad old days under the rule of they who shall not be named.

In Victorian time, Dun Laoghaire was the Costa Del Sol of Ireland. They packed their wagons to DL for their holidays. No jet lag or priority boarding then, but I'm sure there was still traffic.This is Dublin.

Up until ten years ago, the ferry from Holyhead in Wales docked here, but then it moved to the Port of Dublin. Today's it mostly small sail boats, with a weekly cruise ship here that too big to dock at the port, instead it stays in the bay and they tender the passengers in.

The Dun Laoghaire main street isn't anything special, unless you like charity shops, so we'll stick to the sea front. One quick shout out for the tiny pen shop in top floor of the utterly non descript shopping centre. I love that a pen shop not only exists, but seems busy. The owner is a character. Buy a fancy pen while you still can.

Get On The Water

Here you can walk the pier with half of Dublin. There's an ice shop at the end of the pier as your reward. Or you can take a boat tour with the Goat Boat, I need to find out the rational behind its name. Or go paddle boarding in style with Big Style. If you want to learn wing foiling, my good friends at Pure Magic Waterspots will show you how to fall off a wobbling board sticking out of the water on a wobbly knife.

We Works For Free in DL

If you have the misfortune to have to work while you are here, you can at least work from a beautiful setting. The Lexicon Library has a silent work area on its top floor with views out over the water. And it's free. No WeWorks fees here, we walks right in like we own the place.

Tea and Theatre

The Royal Marine Hotel in one of those seaside hotels which has slightly lost its grandeur thanks to Ryanair's cheap flights, but it's still a nice experience to do afternoon tea there, especially if you are travelling with a slightly older member of the family.

Next is one of my favourite spots in Dublin to spend an evening. The Pavillion Theatre. It's very local, where Irish artists perform in front of an Irish audience. This isn't Riverdance at The Gaiety. I'm always impressed by their variety of performances. If you want a Dublin night that's not in the city, you could do pre theatre dinner and attend an event here.

Coffee, Famers Market and 99 Ice Cream

You have to stop at Happy Out Cafe. You'll have walked at least 500m from the Dart station by now, so you'll need a rest. I don't think there's a more beautiful cafe setting in Dublin and their ethos is just as impressive, they employ young adults with Down syndrome.

Across the road is the People's Park. On Sundays they have the market. Lots of local food and a very nice atmosphere.

Just about a two minute walk further down the sea wall is Teddy's Ice Cream. A Dublin institution. Keep some room for some ice cream here.

Glasthule

As you walk along the sea front, we're going to take a small diversion, but a worthy one. Just one street back from the water is a lovely village of Glasthule. It's a wealthy spot as you'll see with its food emporium. If you're in any city in the world and trying to find the nice areas, just google Emporium. They don't put them in bad areas.

Anyway I diverge, back to to Glasthule. You could walk through it in five minutes, but you shouldn't. It's another look at what life in Ireland is really like. Or you could stop for a lunch, pint, dinner or all three.

This is exactly what Ireland By Locals is about. Sure, Glasthule won't make the Must Visit spots in the NY Times next article about Dublin, but when you're on your flight home, you'll understand more about real Irish life than the folks next to you who never left Temple Bar. They might have more shamrock souvenirs, but you've been to an Irish emporium.

Where To Eat in Glasthule.

• 64 Wine for lunch and excellent wine
• Cavistons for seafood that was probably swimming this morning
• Rasam if you want to try how the Irish do Indian food
• The Eagle House for a proper pint with proper local

The Ugliest Building in Dublin

Just don't eat too much in Glasthule because you might throw it up when you see what's next. As you return to the seafront, you'll encounter a sight that defies all logic.

Let me set the scene. We're in one of Dublin's wealthiest areas. Million euro homes. Sea views that stretch halfway to Wales. People with more money than sense and enough influence to get planning permission for their dog's designer kennel.

And yet...

Somehow, someone managed to build what might be the ugliest building in Dublin right here on the Sandycove seafront. And here's the kicker, the side facing the sea doesn't even have windows! Imagine having some of the best views in Dublin and deciding "Nah, let's just stick up a wall instead."

The Forty Foot

The Forty Foot is Dublin's most famous swimming spot. 365 days a year you will find people swimming here, no matter how cold it is.

To prove this, just there last week when it was 1C I went to visit it. Just for you. I had five layers on while talking to the man in speedos in the photo below while he still was in the water. His teeth weren't chattering while we talked. I asked him, in a nice way, if he was crazy and he said it was the best thing he did every day. Made him feel alive.

The Forty Foot is more than a place to shrivel body parts, it's a huge social gathering place. The swimming is just the excuse for Irish people to do what they do best, meet and have a chat.

If you've seen Apple TV's Bad Sisters recently, they go swimming here in nearly every episode.

I should add that I was grateful that the gentleman was wearing speedos, because it wasn't so long ago that the Forty Foot was a male only nude swimming spot. This is an excerpt from The Irish Times about what happened in July 1974

Forty years ago tomorrow, on July 20th 1974, a group of determined women invaded the Forty Foot bathing place at Sandycove, Co Dublin. Some of the placards read “we’ll fight them on the beaches, we’ll win between the sheets” Some of the men, who often swam naked at the spot and were upset by the invasion, waved their genitals at the invaders. From then on, women swam at the Forty Foot.

James Joyce Museum

On this cold day last week, I sought refuge in the Martello Tower overlooking the Forty Foot. It's home to the James Joyce Museum. Joyce spent six nights here with his host, Stephen Dedalus, whom he had recently offended publicly. His stay came to an abrupt end when Dedalus fired a gun in his general direction. Joyce took the hint and ran. If he was naked, he could have jumped in the Forty Foot and blended right in.

The museum is run by enthusiastic elderly volunteers who aren't nearly as docent as they look, they guilted me into buying a Joyce book before I left.

The view from the top of the tower is beautiful. A 360 degree panorama of Dublin. Just be warned, the spiral staircase is claustrophobically narrow.

Worth a visit? If you enjoy quirky little museums with character (and characters running them), yes. Plus, on a cold day, it's a perfect excuse to get warm while pretending to be cultured.

Dalkey

Dublin's Fanciest Village

Next along the sea walk is some big gates, because that's all you'll see for a while as the wealthy gobble up the seafront all for themselves. This is your first clue that this is a rich part of Dublin.

Look carefully and you'll notice the Irish phenomenon that once your personal net worth exceeds a certain number, ironically you stop using numbers of your house and instead give your house a name. A certain sunglassed singer lives in this area, one Dublin wit said "never mind where the streets have no names, Bono lives where the houses have no numbers".

Amazon Castles

When you walk into Dalkey you'll see the sign proclaiming the 7 castles of Dalkey. Well, this is a bit of fluff by the Dalkey Tourist Board because these 'castles' weren't the home of royalty. No, they were storage units. You see, Dalkey was actually the main port of Dublin back around the 14th century and the Bezos of those days needed to store all their stuff that was just unloaded off the ships. So they over engineered their few warehouses and 7 centuries later a marketing guru rebranded them.

Castle Street

This is the main street in Dalkey and is a good spot to refuel. As you'd expect, there are no shortage of places to eat and drink here. I'm a simple man and love the falafel wrap at Thyme Out. But The Queens, the Club or the Dalkey Duck are other places I like to get more comfy in and Bono watch. I don't mean for a selfie, I mean to run in case he starts talking. "Spouting shite" is Dublin for this kind of talking

Celebs in Dalkey

The good thing about Ireland is that celebs like coming here because we leave them alone. Matt Damon got stuck in Dalkey for months during Covid and made the local supermarket go viral when he was spotted carrying their definitely not Gucci plastic bag. Tom Hanks stayed at Bono's warehouse, sorry castle, when he came to give a talk at the Dalkey Book Festival (if googling emporiums doesn't give you any results for nice parts of an unknown city, try googling Book Festivals, another good give away). Or Lobster Festival, yes Dalkey has one.

The Gutter Bookshop is the local independent bookshop for you to support instead of Castles Jeff.

Dalkey Island

After your big lunch, it's time for some hills. Walk up Colliemore Road, skip past the nice people on Meany Avenue and you'll see Colliemore Harbour. The harbour bit was named by the same 'let's call these warehouses castles' folk. My bathtub is bigger than this harbour, but it is beautiful with views across to Dalkey Island.

This is the kind of thing that I love in Dublin. You're in a major European capital city, but looking out at an island that could be in the most remote part of the Scottish Highlands.

Dillon's Park

But don't run down your phone power taking your photos here. Let the tourists do that, while you stealthily sneak away like you're leaving a boring dinner party and head just a tiny bit further up the hill to Dillon's Park where you have better views of the island and the tourists somehow miss.

In the park, look for the Ancient Holy Puddle, although being Dalkey they call it a Well. Locals insist has healing properties, mainly for real estate prices.

Killiney

Dublin's Beverly Hills

Come out of the park and keep going up the hill on Vico Road. At the top of the hill is Sorrento Row. Those unassuming looking townhomes are some of Ireland's most expensive properties. They don't look great from where you are now, but you'll understand why in a few minutes.

Don't go left, it's private. Want a pro tip on how to know where public roads end? No? You're getting it anyway because I just figured it out and feel quite happy about it. Look at Google Maps. See if they have a street view there. If they don't, it's very likely private.

Or look for the Private Property billboards on the street. That's probably easier.

Keep following the road and you'll be saying where is that lad bringing us and then suddenly it opens up and you see the most glorious view in all of Dublin. Across Killiney Beach and over to the Wicklow Mountains. Now you see why those standard homes cost a fortune.

Again, don't burn your batteries here, the views get even better as you walk along Vico Road. You can look down and see the train tracks. And feel a smidgen of satisfaction that all those lucky people in these amazing homes still have a train rattling their walls every 15 minutes.

If you have more stamina than me, you can walk down to the Vico Baths.

Instead, I save my energy until I get to the sign for the Cat's Ladder and its 238 steps. Curiosity may kill the cat but its ladder would do me in. So I felinely ignore them and continue merrily on flat ground.

Actually from here, it's downhill to Killiney Beach and the Dart station. Your 15,000 steps are done. Just one last thing to remember, sit on a rear facing seat this time. A bit counterintuitive, but it's the best views of the coast as the train takes 5 minutes to cover what just took you three hours.

My Other Walking Tours of Dublin

This is just one of my tours of Dublin. I have 5. The City. The Sea. The Village. The Cliffs. The Mountains.

And I do guided walks of them too. If you're the kind of person who might live in Dalkey, you'll probably prefer a private guided walk.

Have questions about Ireland ? Book a trip planning call with me. I'll save you hours of research.

Have Questions?

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