National Gallery of Ireland
Thirty-one Turner watercolours live here — and by the donor's condition, they only come out in January.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Dublin offline.
Born from a railway magnate's 1853 exhibition on Leinster House lawn, the gallery opened in 1864 with just 112 paintings and grew into Ireland's home for Italian Baroque, Dutch masters, and the full national Irish collection. The Milltown Wing alone holds over 220 paintings donated from a single Anglo-Irish country house.
What to look for
- The 31 J.M.W. Turner watercolours — bequeathed with a stipulation they be shown only in January to guard against sunlight damage
- The Milltown Wing (1899–1903), built to house the Dowager Countess of Milltown's gift of 223 paintings, 48 sculptures, and 33 engravings from Russborough House
- Italian Baroque and Dutch masters galleries — the two European strengths that set this apart from a purely national collection
Two entrances: Merrion Square (beside Leinster House) or Clare Street — both put you in the city centre.
National Gallery of Ireland is one of 35 sights worth the detour in Dublin, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Dublin pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Dublin
- Aviva StadiumOne 51,711-seat bowl jointly owned by rugby and football — two governing bodies, one ground, no separate home for either.
- Dublin CastleThe river that gave Dublin its name still flows beneath your feet — and the building above it ran Ireland for 750 years.
- Croke ParkThe fourth-largest stadium in Europe holds 82,300 people — almost entirely for sports most of the world has never watched.
- National Library of IrelandIreland's paper memory — manuscripts, photographs, and newspapers free to open on the spot.
- St Patrick's CathedralIreland's national cathedral has never had a bishop — that role belongs to the rival church 400 metres up the road.
- Spire of DublinA 120-metre stainless-steel pin planted on the exact spot where an IRA bomb in 1966 — and a controlled demolition six days later — erased Nelson's Pillar.