You will find the grave of Jonathan Swift in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on the junction of Patrick Street and Upper Kevin Street.

The grave, to the right of the entrance to the cathedral, is very simple, consisting of a gated off area on the floor, with little to distinguish it other than two plaques, one for Jonathan Swift and the other for his life-long companion and friend, Esther Johnston, or “Stella” as he called her. To the left of the entrance there is a bust of Swift and his epitaph, which he wrote himself.

Don’t be too disappointed by the simplicity of this grave, because although Swift was a great man, he was also a simple one at heart. He had a strong sense of justice and his satirical essay “A Modest Proposal”, in which he suggests that the children of the poor be fattened up for the rich to eat, was an attack on the heartless attitude of the Irish rich towards the poor.

He was a writer, poet and a priest – serving as Dean of St Patrick’s between 1713 and 1742. A lot of his work was published under a pseudonym; e.g. Gulliver’s Travels was first published under the name of Lemuel Gulliver.

Swift had a great fear of death; it was thought that for most of his life he suffered from Méniére’s disease, and it is possible that towards the end of his life he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease; many considered him insane, with his outbursts of violence and his sudden speech problems. He died in 1745 and left his money for funding an establishment in Ireland for the mentally ill, for, as he said: “If there was ever a country in need of such an institute, it is this one”.

The Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church is a Roman Catholic church in Dublin, Ireland maintained by the Carmelite order. The church is noted for having the relics of Saint Valentine, which were donated to the church in the 19th century by Pope Gregory XVI from their previous location in the cemetery of St. Hippolytus in Rome. The church is on the site of a pre-Reformation Carmelite priory built in 1539. The current structure dates from 1825 and was designed by George Papworth, who also designed St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral in Dublin. It was extended and enlarged in 1856 and 1868. The church also contains relics of St. Albert, a Sicilian who died in 1306. On his feast day (August 7), a relic of the saint is dipped into the water of St. Albert's Well and is said to grant healing of body and mind those who use the water. The church also contains a life-size oak figure of Our Lady of Dublin.

This used to be a haunt of Brendan Behan and Paddy Kavanagh, Irish literary giants of the 20th century. It is near Grafton Street, so after a huge spending marathon you can relax and enjoy a good pint of Guinness. The room upstairs is an excellent place for parties and book launches. As with many popular pubs it is packed on the weekends. Its literary past makes this a unique cultural experience.

The Huguenot Cemetery (Irish: Reilig na nÚgóineach) is a small cemetery dating from 1693 located near St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, Ireland, beside the Shelbourne Hotel. Although often described as being on the green, it is actually on the north side of Merrion Row, a small street linking St. Stephen's Green with Upper Merrion Street and Ely Place. Those buried there are descendants of Huguenots who fled persecution in France following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes which had guaranteed religious freedom. The cemetery is not open to visitors, though it is visible through the railings and a list of 239 surnames of those buried is inscribed on the wall plaque to the left.

In 1492, the Ormondes and Kildares, two prominent families at that time, were involved in a bitter feud. Some of the Kildares took refuge on these grounds, in the Chapter House. Later, one of the refuges made a hole in the door and he hacked off the hand of his adversary. The feud was ended. Today, this door is reduced to four and a half gnarled pine planks, dark brown with age, at the entrance of Dublin's famed St. Patrick's Cathedral.

"Molly Malone" (also known as "Cockles and Mussels" or "In Dublin's Fair City") (Irish: Mol Ní Mhaoileoin) is a popular song, set in Dublin, Ireland, which has become the unofficial anthem of Dublin City. Molly is commemorated in a statue designed by Jeanne Rynhart, erected to celebrate the city's first millennium in 1988. Placed at the bottom of Grafton Street in Dublin, this statue is known colloquially as "The Tart With The Cart", "The Dish With The Fish", "The Trollop With The Scallop(s)", "The Dolly With the Trolley", and "The Flirt in the Skirt". The statue portrays Molly as a busty young woman in seventeenth-century dress. Her low-cut dress and large breasts were justified on the grounds that as "women breastfed publicly in Molly's time, breasts were popped out all over the place."

To get from Parliament Street to Capel Street on the south bank of the River Liffey, you will cross the Grattan Bridge.

The first bridge to be built spanning the river here was called the Essex Bridge, named after the 1st Lord of Essex, Arthur Capell, who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1672 and 1677. This bridge was designed by Sir Humphrey Jervis with seven piers of arched stone taken from the ruins of the nearby St Mary’s Abbey. In 1722 an equestrian statue of King George 1st was erected on the north bank in front of the bridge.

The bridge hadn’t been very well built and not high enough over the river to avoid flooding. This and increasing human, horse and cattle traffic over the bridge caused it to start crumbling in places.

It was deemed unsafe and in 1757 when the Wide Streets Commission was established by Parliament, the bridge was rebuilt by George Semple. When the reconstruction was finished the statue of King George was removed and place in the gardens of Mansion House, the official residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin.

In 1872 the bridge was remodelled after Westminster Bridge in London and wrought-iron lamp standards, decorated with pairs of sea-horses were installed to light the bridge. In 1874 the Bridge was renamed after the Member of Parliament, Henry Grattan.

In 2003 the Dublin City Council reconstructed the bridge deck, adding granite footpaths with the idea of setting up a book market in the middle of the bridge, but so many other street-vendors applied for permission to set up kiosks that the idea was abandoned.

St Michael's Church (Synod Hall) is technically a part of the Christ Church Cathedral, but not too many people know what Synod Hall has to offer. It has a tower with a great view of Old Dublin and is a great opportunity to take some priceless photographs. It also hosts an interesting museum that serves as a starting point for many tours of the city.