Romantic Dublin on a Budget: Free and Cheap Dates

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Dublin is expensive for dinner and free for almost everything that makes it romantic. The best evening in this city costs two euro on a Leap Card and ends on a hill above a bay that people have been comparing to Naples for two centuries.

Killiney Hill at dusk, for €2

The DART runs south to Killiney in about 25 minutes at the flat €2.00 Leap fare, and the hill is a short climb from the station. At the top there is an obelisk and the long view down over Killiney Bay, which is the view the comparison with the Bay of Naples is about. Free, open, and best about forty minutes before sunset.

Walk it back along the Vico Road into Dalkey afterwards and you have a whole evening for the price of two train fares. There is a DART home from Dalkey too.

The Great South Wall, and the red lighthouse

From Ringsend, the Great South Wall runs roughly 4 km out into Dublin Bay on an eighteenth-century sea wall that was the longest in the world when it was built, ending at the red Poolbeg Lighthouse. It is free, entirely exposed, and unlike anything else you can walk to from a European capital. Take a coat you do not mind wrecking and go on a clear evening.

Three gardens, all free

  • The Iveagh Gardens, behind the National Concert Hall: a sunken lawn, a cascade, a maze and a rose garden, quieter than St Stephen’s Green and largely unknown to visitors.
  • Merrion Square, with the Oscar Wilde statue and the Georgian doors on all four sides.
  • The Phoenix Park, 707 hectares, open 24 hours, with a wild fallow deer herd and the Victorian Walled Garden. Information at phoenixpark.ie .

Add the National Gallery of Ireland, which is free, warm and holds Caravaggio’s The Taking of Christ, and you have three wet-weather answers that cost nothing: nationalgallery.ie .

The bay by boat, around €25

Dublin Bay Cruises sail from Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dún Laoghaire and Howth, and the Dún Laoghaire to Howth crossing is the most popular, about an hour, at a standard fare of around €25, with routes running roughly €25 to €35. Go out by boat and come back on the DART for €2, which makes a better shaped afternoon than an out and back. Book online; tickets are only sold at the boat if it has not filled. Sailings at dublinbaycruises.com .

Sunrise at the Forty Foot, if you both actually swim

At Sandycove, below the Martello tower that opens Ulysses and now houses the free James Joyce Tower and Museum, the Forty Foot is a rock promontory with steps down into the open Irish Sea. People have swum here year round for three hundred years and it is deep at every state of the tide, which is why they use it.

It is never lifeguarded and never patrolled, at any time of year. Deaths, near-drownings and hypothermia have happened there. If you swim it, go with someone who knows the spot, go in daylight, keep it short and get dressed fast. If you do not already swim in cold open water, it is a fine place to stand and watch other people do it.

Pubs for a quiet evening

Dublin’s romantic register is a small dark room with partitions in it, not a music session.

The Long Hall at 51 South Great George’s Street has been licensed since 1766, with an interior dating from 1881: a carved counter, gold-leaf partitions, ornate stained glass and bevelled mirrors. It has no music at all, and that is precisely the appeal. Kehoe’s on South Anne Street, The Stag’s Head off Dame Lane and Mulligan’s on Poolbeg Street are the other snug-and-partition rooms.

Cost note: a pint runs €5.00 to €6.20 in an ordinary Dublin local and €7.00 to €9.00 in Temple Bar, on Grafton Street and in the hotel bars off St Stephen’s Green, with The Temple Bar Pub itself recorded at €10.95 in April 2026. The pubs above are mostly in the first band, one or two streets off the second.

Dinner, cheap to expensive

  • Gallagher’s Boxty House in Temple Bar has been doing boxty for more than thirty-five years. Good, and priced for the quarter it sits in.
  • The Winding Stair at 40 Ormond Quay Lower sits above the bookshop with a view of the Ha’penny Bridge, daily 12:00 to 22:30. It has been run by Elaine Murphy’s restaurant group since she reopened it in 2006. winding-stair.com .
  • At the top end, Dublin holds seven Michelin stars. Chapter One on Parnell Square, under Mickael Viljanen, and Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud on Upper Merrion Street both hold two, with Liath in Blackrock also at two. Bastible on the South Circular Road, Variety Jones on Thomas Street, D’Olier Street and Forest Avenue in Ballsbridge hold one each. Book well ahead.

For a room that keeps the Green, the gardens and the DART all inside ten minutes, compare Dublin rates on Booking.com . If you would rather have something booked and timed, browse Dublin experiences on GetYourGuide .

Do it in this order on a clear day: the Iveagh Gardens in the afternoon, the DART to Killiney for sunset, and The Long Hall after. Total spend, four euro and two pints. Then fill the other days with things worth paying for or a run out of town .