Very big help for our trip. Useful and has a nice pullaway map. I generally like the Lonely Planet and Fodor's travel guides the most and this one did not disappoint. ( )

Having used the Lonely Planet guide to Ireland fifteen years ago, when I spent a memorable three months hiking all over the country, I immediately thought of them again when looking for a Dublin guide for my recent trip. I had only a few days to spend in Ireland's capital city, after my time taking a language course up in Donegal, so I was looking for something to give the highlights. By and large I was pleased with Fionn Davenport's guide, which contained descriptions and directions for a number of places of interest to me, as well as a fold-out map, covering the city center, that was very handy.

That said, there were some omissions that puzzled me. There was no mention of Bewley's Cafe in the food section, which struck me as extremely odd, given the fact that the Grafton street cafe is something of a landmark - and also a really cool place to visit, for a meal! - and would definitely be of interest to tourists. Even more troubling, to this linguistic enthusiast and student of Irish, was the fact that the list of bookstores (book-shopping being an important part of any trip) contained nary a mention of An Siopa Leabhar, Dublin's only Irish-language bookshop. Now I understand that not every tourist will know Irish, but something so unique to Ireland really deserved a mention. Certainly, I recall that it got one in the Dublin section of the general Ireland guide I used, years ago - so why not in a Dublin-specific guide? Very puzzling.

Of course, I do understand that no guide can mention everything. But it did sometimes seem as if the amenities listed here were a little... bland, a little less than unique. Take the restaurants. I tried out two of the more upscale eateries recommended in the guide, and came away somewhat less than impressed. They were of good quality, but nothing spectacular - I had a more memorable food experience in the restaurant I picked out at random, my first night in town - nothing I couldn't get at home. And when I'm traveling, I generally want something I can't get at home. Still, overall I found the guide helpful, even if I thought it left out some jewels, and was just a tad too focused on the conventional, for my taste. ( )

In prep. for TCD Corpora meeting. ( )