St Stephen's Green

This elegant 22-acre park at the top of Grafton Street has had more reinventions than a pop star. In medieval times it was a marshy common where livestock grazed, lepers were treated, and public punishments provided the entertainment. In 1663, Dublin's city leaders fenced off 27 acres and sold 96 surrounding plots for housing, launching the Georgian development that still frames the square today.

For over two centuries, only residents with keys could enter the park. The rest of Dublin could look through the railings but not walk on the grass. That changed in 1877 when an Act of Parliament reopened it to the public, and Sir Arthur Guinness — yes, that Guinness — personally funded the landscaping in 1880, transforming it into the Victorian pleasure garden you see today, complete with an ornamental lake, bandstand, and meticulously planted flowerbeds.

During the 1916 Easter Rising, rebels under Michael Mallin and Constance Markievicz seized the Green and dug trenches around the perimeter. The British commander facing them was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons across the street, and in one of the war's stranger episodes, both sides agreed to a daily ceasefire so the park keeper could feed the ducks. You can't make this stuff up.

The park contains a garden for the visually impaired on the northwest corner, with scented plants labelled in Braille — one of the earliest such gardens in Europe. There's also a memorial to the Great Famine by Edward Delaney, and busts of Countess Markievicz and James Joyce. On a sunny Dublin afternoon, the Green fills with office workers, students, and tourists, and you'd never guess this quiet park was once a battlefield.