Cross the Liffey by Grattan Bridge, cross Wellington Quay on the south bank, and walk on down Parliament Street. The white pillars and copper-green rotunda dome of City Hall are right in front of you. Cross Cork Hill to enter. Like so many of Dublin’s grand public buildings, City Hall has served several masters. It was built between 1769 and 1779. Its architect was Thomas Pooley, whose design was better received than that proposed by the more famous James Gandon, architect of the Customs House and the Four Courts on the north side of the Liffey. It was originally intended to be Dublin’s Royal Exchange, but in 1852 Dublin Corporation took it over, and it is still the seat of the city council. Mundane as that may sound, the vaults beneath now house ‘Dublin’s City hall: The Story of The Capital’, a multimedia exhibition that highlights the city’s history. Look down as you enter the foyer below the rotunda at the mosaic floor, which bears Dublin’s Latin motto: ‘Obedientia civium urbis felicitas’ (‘Happy the city where citizens obey’) – an outstanding example of wishful thinking.

Leaving City Hall, turn left on Cork Hill and almost immediately left again to enter Dublin Castle.  Virtually nothing remains of the original stronghold, though in the Undercroft you can see the scant remains of the Viking stronghold that preceded it. The castle grew under the Tudor and Stuart dynasties, but its present layout dates from the late 17th century. Until Irish independence, the castle was the residence of the British viceroy; thereafter, it passed into the hands of the Irish government, and the Lower Yard is used as government offices. The lavish State Apartments include the Throne Room, with a throne placed here by William of Orange (William III) in celebration of the victory of the Protestant cause at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Also within the State Apartments, St Patrick’s Hall, once the banqueting hall of the defunct royal order of the Knights of St Patrick, has stunning 18th-century painted ceilings. The round, battlemented Record Tower is the oldest part of the building and was used as a prison in Tudor times. Next to it, the Church of the Most Holy Trinity, built in 1814, is the work of Francis Johnson, who along with James Gandon is probably the best-known contributor to Dublin’s treasury of Georgian architecture. Look up as you leave by the Cork Hill entrance. Above the arch stands a statue of Justice, looking inward to the seat of English power and rather too symbolically turning her back on Dublin and Ireland. 

Exit the castle, turn left into Castle Street, then turn left into Werburgh Street. After 45m (50yds) you will reach St Werburgh’s Church (open to visitors May to September). St Werburgh’s was begun in 1715 but remained unfinished until 1732. It was Dublin Castle’s parish church until the building of Holy Trinity. Within the church are lavish memorials to members of the Guinness dynasty. In one of the vaults below lies Lord Edward Fitzgerald, one of the only aristocrats to join Wolfe Tone’s unsuccessful rebellion in 1798. He was executed for his part.

On exiting the church, retrace your steps along Werburgh Street and turn left to Christchurch Place. Cross to the north side and turn right to enter Dublin’s oldest building, Christ Church Cathedral; the main entrance is through the west wing, to the left of the Romanesque doorway that opens on to the south transept. 

Exit the cathedral by the graceful stone bridge facing the entrance and linking it with the Synod Hall. This elegant neo-Gothic building, formerly the seat of the Synod of the Church of Ireland, now houses Dublinia and the Viking World, a twin exhibition that walks you back through medieval and pre-Norman Dublin. The best bit is the life-size reconstruction of a street from the Viking town that flourished on what is now Wood Quay. 

Recross the bridge to the cathedral, exit, cross to the south side of Christ Church Place. Turn round to place the cathedral on your right and turn left down Nicholas Street. Pass Ross Road, Bride Road and Bull Alley Street on your left. Immediately after Bull Alley Street is St Patrick’s Park, and the cathedral is an obvious landmark. Walk to the foot of Patrick Street, turn left, and enter it. Founded in 1191, Ireland’s largest place of worship stands where St Patrick baptized his first converts to Christianity, in AD450, at a sacred spring that was almost certainly a pre-Christian holy place. Author Jonathan Swift was dean here from 1713 to 1747, and Handel’s Messiah had its first performance here under his auspices in 1742. Work on the great stone cathedral to replace Patrick’s simple chapel began in 1192, on the orders of Archbishop John Comyn. It has been expanded and restored over the centuries, with the rebuilding of the 141ft (43m) Minot’s Tower at the west end in 1370, the addition of the needle-pointed spire in the 18th century and restoration in the 19th century. 

Leave the cathedral and turn left down its south side along St Patrick’s Close. At the end of the close, turn left onto Kevin Street Upper, cross Bride Street, and continue along Bishop Street to the corner of Aungier Street. Turn left here, pass Peter Row on your left, then at 56 Aungier Street turn left into the churchyard of Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church. Built in 1827, the church stands on the site of a 16th-century Carmelite priory. Its two big claims to fame are as the last resting place of St Valentine, whose relics, donated by Pope Gregory XVI in 1836, are buried beneath the saint’s statue in the northeast corner, and as the home of an oak statue of the Virgin that dates from the 15th century, the only such religious effigy to have survived the flames of the Reformation and the destruction of Ireland’s monasteries.

Retrace your steps to Aungier Street and follow it north to Great George’s Street South. Carry on to the north end of Great George’s Street South, turn left on Dame Street and walk the short stretch back to City Hall.