When you first arrive in Dublin for your Study & Travel Program, it can difficult to know how to find things. At City Language School we want to make your life as easy as possible as quickly as possible, so we thought we would give you 7 useful websites to start your life in Ireland’s capital….and then we decided seven wasn’t enough. So here are a lot more than seven websites, blogs and Facebook pages to help you in Dublin.
Accommodation
OK so we are going to give you two to start with; rent.ie and daft.ie are excellent sources for accommodation. Finding a place to live can be difficult and as a capital city, Dublin is no different from anywhere else in Europe. Both of these websites are good places to start but we do recommend talking to people in your class and in school to ask about any room shares that are available. If you are prepared to share, another option is EasyRoommate.ie.
Food
LovinDublin.ie is a great website for keeping up to date with everything new and cool related to eating and drinking. If it’s trendy they will have it here. Justeat.ie have a blog that is quite useful sometimes and you can also check out our own blog on places to eat in Dublin for less than €5.
Things to do
The dublineventguide.ie is run by a German named Joerg. He has been producing this guide for over ten years and does it for absolutely nothing. Everything he posts on the calendar is free. It is tough to navigate but is really worth spending some time on, if you want to find things to do in Dublin. If you want to join a choir or go looking at stars, Joerg has found it.
Nightlife
Yelp.ie is useful if you want to know where to go in the city at night time. There is also a well-known facebook page for Brazilians who live in Dublin called Braselieros em Dublin that can guide on good things to do at night time.
Music & Gigs
If you love music and concerts there are many parts of the city to go to. Most big bands stop off in Dublin on their tours of Europe but tickets for those gigs can be expensive. For something smaller, try your luck around Wexford Street where Whelan’s has something every night. Entertainment.ie has every listing you need to know and if you are looking for other venues to try you can always check out our blog on the Seven Best Venues for Live Music in Dublin at City Language School. If you are a big fan of music and like reading about everything that is happening in the Irish and international scene Nialler9.com is well worth a visit.
Serious Stuff – legal, transport & work
As well as having fun, you will need to know the practicalities of life in Dublin. Citizensinformation.ie is a great and simple website for questions around working, tax and legal rights. They have offices right across the country and are usually very helpful. It is a good idea to look at this website before you come to Ireland.
VisitDublin.com is more for visiting tourists but will give you lots of basic information before you come. DublinBus.ie has a very useful app that you really should put on your phone the moment you get here and if you are on the LUAS line, it is worth visiting their site to see how it all works. We advise all our students to get a LEAP card as soon as they possibly can.
If you are looking for work, jobsireland.ie and gumtree.ie are useful places to start. For more advice on getting work in Dublin please read our City Language School blog in which we interviewed some of our students about their experiences.
Learn English
That’s easy. Come to class every day but when you are not with us, watch out for our posts on our Facebook Page. Every Tuesday and Wednesday we post short videos and short grammar lessons from our very own Grammar Guru – a mysterious and as yet unknown figure who posts words of wisdom every week for the good of humanity.