Practical questions, briefly answered.

Book both. The museum runs an excellent inside tour — book it directly at kilmainhamgaolmuseum.ie. Our walk handles what the museum can't: the courthouse where prisoners were sentenced (still standing next door), the workhouse uphill where the families ended up, the executed leaders' route from cell to firing wall to Glasnevin Cemetery. Inside in the morning, outside with us in the afternoon — most of our walkers do exactly that.

Same idea. Each has an official inside experience worth booking on its own day; our walks build the city around them — the streets that fed them, the buildings that argued with them, the people who never made it through their doors. With every booking we send a one-page note recommending the inside tours and how to fit them around our walk.

Correct — every Celtic Penitentiary walk takes place entirely on public streets, footpaths and small public parks. We carry no entry tickets and run no interior segments. Three hours, weatherproof outerwear advised. The cathedral porches make excellent shelter for unscheduled three-minute breaks.

Public walks: €48 per adult walker, €38 for full-time students with valid ID. Bespoke and family-history walks are quoted individually based on group size and route — usually €280–€460 for a group of up to twelve, all in. We send a written quote within one working day.

Through the form on our contact page or by email to bookings@celticpenitentiary.com. Tell us the walk, your preferred dates (give us two or three options), and your group size. We'll come back with availability and a quote within one working day.

Cancel more than seven days before the walk: full refund, no questions. Cancel three to seven days out: 50% refund. Less than three days: no refund, but we'll happily transfer you to another date in the next ninety days. If we cancel a walk for weather or operator illness, you get a full refund or a re-book.

Yes. We run public walks Tuesday through Saturday, mornings and afternoons, all twelve months. We do not run on Christmas Day, St Stephen's Day, or Good Friday. Bespoke walks can be booked any day with notice.

Layers and a waterproof outer. Comfortable closed shoes — we walk three to four kilometres on flat Dublin paving, with one short cobbled stretch in the Liberties. In summer, sunscreen and a hat. In winter, a warm hat, gloves, and don't trust the morning forecast; we walk in light rain.

Mostly. The Castle and Rebel Mile routes are step-free throughout. The Kilmainham route includes a short cobbled section on Thomas Street and a rougher path along the riverbank. If you, a member of your group, or a child uses a wheelchair, walker, or simply wants a slower pace, tell us in your enquiry and we will adapt the route or the meeting point. We have run guided walks for guests in their nineties and would be glad to do it again.

On public walks: from age twelve and up, with a paying adult. We've found younger children genuinely lose interest in a three-hour outdoor history walk, and we don't want to take their parents' money for an hour of distraction. For a private commission with a school party or family of younger children, we will run a shorter, lighter version — tell us in your enquiry.

We walk. Dublin doesn't have many days when we wouldn't, and the city looks better wet. We will call off a walk only for serious weather warnings (Status Orange or above) — in which case you get a full refund or a re-book. Bring a waterproof; the cathedral porches make excellent shelter for unscheduled three-minute breaks.

Yes. Each route passes a working public toilet (or a friendly café whose owner we know) within an hour of the start. Each route has a built-in seated stop where coffee, tea or water is available; we don't put it on the bill, but we'll point you to the counter.

English on every public walk. We have one guide (Aoife) who walks a fluent Irish-language version on request, and at least one of us has working Spanish, French, or German. For a private commission in another language, ask — we will sometimes bring in a trusted external interpreter, with a small surcharge.

Yes, and please do. Of buildings, streets, your group, your guide. We ask only that you not photograph other walkers' faces without their permission, and that you not livestream the guide's commentary — the script is theirs.

Public walks cap at twelve walkers. Bespoke walks can run up to thirty if we split the group across two guides — two walks running ten minutes apart on the same route, meeting up at the second sit-down stop. We've done this for a Trinity alumni reunion of twenty-eight and a Boston family-history party of twenty-two.

Yes. If your great-grandparent left Dublin from a parish, a workhouse, or a tenement we know how to find, we will design a walk around it. Síle leads these. Send us what you have — a name, a year, an address, anything — and we'll tell you whether we can build a walk and what it would cost. We are honest if we can't.

All welcome, all common. We've run walks for sixth-form history classes from the Republic and the North, for parish groups from England and the United States, for university alumni reunions, and for a small choir from Vermont. Tell us the angle in your enquiry and we'll match a guide.