O'Connell Street

Dublin's main artery
Talk of the town: O'Connell Street's landmark, the Spire, stands on a spot once occupied by a twin of London's Nelson's column. The statue was blown up by the IRA in 1966.

O'Connell Street is pretty long, rather grand and, mostly, extremely wide, so much so that there's room for a pavement down its centre as well as the Spire: a vast shard of metal erected during the heady Celtic Tiger era, which overshadows the more traditional statues dotted about.
It's an appropriate spot for such a thrusting symbol of modern Ireland. The street was at the centre of the Easter Rising, which was kicked off by a proclamation read outside the General Post Office in 1916.

Now thick with traffic and with too many of its grand buildings leased to fast food outlets, the city's most famous street is not as appealing a place to promenade as it should be, but you can still get a sense of its history (look out for the bullet holes in the GPO's facade). Plus, at its northern end lies the interesting, multi-cultural Parnell Street and Parnell Square, the site of several lovely museums.