Multicultural Dublin City

Multicultural Dublin City

Stopping in Dublin before heading off on a hiking trip on Ireland's southwest coast, I wasn't exactly expecting shamrocks and leprechauns; the city's transformation into a cosmopolitan European capital has been well documented by now. But the advance press hadn't prepared me for the international mix I encountered on Dublin's streets during the four days I spent there in April.

The Argentine woman who checked me in at La Stampa, the small boutique hotel where I first landed on arrival, explained that Dublin was full of young people from her country, many of them riding out Argentina's economic hard times by studying in one of Dublin's numerous English-as-a-second-language schools. Dublin, she explained, has a liberal policy for work-study visas; enrolled students may take up to 20 hours a week of paid employment.

So Dublin has become a mecca for students from Buenos Aires to Beijing. Walking the streets, especially that first morning as I wove my way through the throngs hurrying into the walled quadrangle of Trinity College, I felt as if I'd traveled back to my own university days.

Dublin's youth and hipness mean it is easy to find a good cappuccino -- and perhaps even connect to the Internet -- in cafes north or south of the Liffey, the wide, brownish river that slices the city in half. Another upside to cosmopolitanism is that Dublin now boasts the same smart and stylish accommodations you would expect to find in any European capital, at more affordable prices. For about the cost of a damp closet with a bathroom down the hall in London, I stayed in quite luxurious surroundings at La Stampa, where the large, thick-walled guest rooms are part of a renovation of several old buildings above and behind a popular restaurant of the same name.

Twin beds with lush russet velvet comforters and Italian silk pillows awaited as I collapsed with an unusually severe case of trans-Atlantic jet lag. (I'd called ahead and asked if I could check in early.) Around the block was Grafton Street, Dublin's pedestrian shopping area, where browsers parade, flower sellers ply their trade, and street musicians with guitars sing Jimi Hendrix and Dylan songs for loose change. Later I joined the lunchtime stroll of shoppers and ducked into Bewley's Cafe, a Dublin landmark. Inside the 19th-century building with its giddy faux-Egyptian details, I found a table on the second floor by the window overlooking the street and ordered potato soup, brown bread and coffee while checking my map and getting my bearings.

I was staying south of the Liffey, which traditionally has divided Dublin horizontally into ''smart'' and ''working class'' neighborhoods. While that distinction no longer holds, many of Dublin's main attractions, like its National Museum, Dublin Castle, the famed Georgian facades around Merrion Square, and the recently renovated entertainment district Temple Bar, are on the once neglected south side. To the grittier north is Moore Street, home of Dublin's big outdoor market, and a number of small literary museums that pay homage to the pantheon of writers who have made the city their home at one time or another. The most celebrated of them, James Joyce, still edges out the rock band U2 as Dublin's No. 1 cultural icon -- he's got two museums, plus a statue, while U2's footprint so far is limited to the elegant hotel that two of the band members partly own, the Clarence.

Over the next couple of days, I covered both sides of the Liffey, crossing and recrossing the pretty little white wrought-iron Ha'penny footbridge. The things I wanted to see weren't more than 20 minutes or so from my hotel or from one another, and I enjoyed exploring on foot. The weather wasn't too bad -- a friend who lives in the city was raving about the unusual spell of sunshine -- and getting lost was not a problem, because wrong turns eventually led to a familiar landmark....

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