Public Walking Tours
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Dublin Decoded offer walking tours of Dublin from March to late October each year. Our public walking tours have now concluded for the 2025 season but we will return in the Spring of 2026. Private walking tours, meaning exclusively for your own group, on dates of your own choosing, are still available by pressing the green “Buy Now” button you can see onscreen, and by selecting Private Tours.
Gift cards, an amazing Christmas present, are also available, also by pressing the green “Buy Now” onscreen button and selecting Gift cards from the menu.
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If you know that you are mostly interested in join one of our outstanding public tours, Dublin’s best, then please check back in March and April. Or best of of all, just sign-up to our free newsletter, here (for handy, advance notification of all our tours) If or when you sign up to free newsletter, please don’t forget to click your confirmation email, to complete and confirm your subscription? (If you don’t see the confirmation email straightaway, check your other folders?)
Being on the newsletter subscription list is a very clever move: like being part of a club; and by far the best way to not miss our tours.
Alternatively, to easily explore the idea of a gift card, or our annual online art talks, or of your own private tours, at a date of your own choosing, (including information on rates, on tour options, and on my availability) press on the green, onscreen Buy Now button anytime, and navigate to Private Tours.
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header image: Howth Castle, an 18t century view
Dublin Decoded is in the top 10% of activities for visitors internationally, as voted for in the Trip Advisor 2025 Travelers’ Choice award (above). Thank you, to all our guests who left reviews. As a small, independent company, reviews of Dublin Decoded tours are especially important, and deeply appreciated. To write a review of Dublin Decoded on TripAdvisor, please go here.
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Important information
Don’t see what you are looking for?
3 key useful things to know about Dublin Decoded Public Tours.
Dublin Decoded only ever schedule our Public walks 4- 6 weeks at a time. And we also only schedule a few weeks in advance. Accordingly, if you were reading this in say, May, for example, walks for June, July and beyond in 2025 will appear only later. It’s always a good idea, therefore, to check back here a week or two before you are due in Dublin.
Or far better, sign yourself up to the all-important newsletter. (See the links either above or below)
On the issue of frequency, and volume, it is also important to know that Dublin Decoded simply don”t run a huge amount of tours. (Just the best ones) Unlike many firms who do 3- 10 tours a week or a day, we typically only run from 2- 5 tours per month. As you can imagine, many of these sell out very quickly. (Not all of them, but many)
For all these reasons, and to avoid missing tours as they come on-stream, please sign-yourself up to the free, monthly email-newsletter. We use a reputable mailing list company and so have made it very easy to unsubscribe at any time. This is the sign-up link. If you do subscribe, don’t forget to press the confirmation email! (Some canny overseas visitors actually time their visits to Dublin to coincide with Dublin Decoded tours)
Alternatively, treat yourself, family or friends and book your own Private Tour, on a date of your own choosing (subject to availability). Unlike our Public tours (like the ones up above on this page) with a Private tour you can book your own, personal tour, weeks or months ahead and crucially, on flexible dates too.
To see about, and perhaps book a Private Tour
To inquire about, book, or even get a quote for a Private tour, or simply to see our availability and prices without obligation, just hit the green onscreen “Book Now” button any time, then navigate to “Private Tours”. Here you will see tour options and tour rates (Rates depend primarily on group size, although for smaller groups, weekends can also be slightly more expensive) You will also be able to see if your preferred date is available. And/or which dates are possible.
This online system is by far the best way to research and/or book your tour. The green Book Now button is your best friend here, as you can explore without commitment, backing out any time you wish prior to a possible purchase. And if you do book it means all your information is contained in your confirmation email.
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Dublin Decoded Gift Cards
Our gift cards are far more attractive and usable these days. They even look great! They can be used or redeemed against any Dublin Decoded walk, talk or event, public or private. To purchase a gift card, for any amount, hit the Green onscreen button, select the Gift Card option, then name your recipient and simply chose your amount. Our gift cards do not carry a time limit. (We don’t approve of people who do this!) So long as we are giving talks or leading tours, we will always honour credit bought from Dublin Decoded tours.
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Write a review of Dublin Decoded on TripAdvisor.
We have quality but not quantity. This is a one-man show, and so Without scale, it is impossible for us to compete (for visibility) against big international tour platforms,, with their marketing clout, their algorithms, huge SEO reach and “digital footprint” For this reason, reviews of Dublin Decoded tours are especially important, and are always deeply appreciated. To write a review of Dublin Decoded on TripAdvisor, please go here.
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for about your speaker and guide, see below.
image: a detail from John Speed’s famous map of “Dubline” in 1610. This details shows the area covered in both our Around Dublin’s Medieval Walls walk, and on our Ancient and Vanished Churches walk. Sign-up for our newsletter as above, to get advanced notice. Or keep checking our website for dates throughout the year
image below: Arran with guests on our NGI art tours and more, including images from our upcoming trips to Venice and Italy from October 2025, and hints of our other Italian art excursions to Rome, Florence, Mantua and Verona, in 2026- 29
About your speaker and guide.
The great majority of Dublin Decoded tours (all, unless otherwise stated) are led by founder and owner Arran Henderson.
Arran is from Dublin. He graduated in Art and Architectural History from Oxford Brooks in 1991. After a brief stint working on a musical theater production in the Edinburgh Fringe, he lived in Barcelona several years, then in Rome, through the early to mid-1990s, studying (and often drawing) ancient, renaissance and baroque buildings, sculptures and paintings.
After 8 1/2 years abroad, Arran returned to Dublin in late 1996 to complete a second BA Hons degree, this time in Fine Art at Ireland’s National College of At and Design, graduating 2000.
Arran subsequently worked as an artist, exhibiting in group shows at the Royal Hibernian Academy and in the film and TV industry, mostly in production design. Around the same period he also variously also worked as an Art Critic, teacher, Art History tutor, and occasional newspaper columnist, writing on buildings, art, history and heritage issues (for example in the prestigious Irish Arts Review, and other publications). This latter activity is what led him toward researching and leading tours, and to founding Dublin Decoded. The most notable writing from this period are probably Arran’s monthly column Hidden Dublin. which appeared in “Totally Dublin” magazine early to mid- 2000s.
Since Arran founded Dublin Decoded tours from around 2012, he has featured on radio and in many newspapers, both nationally within Ireland, and internationally, including the Journal (Dublin); the Dublin Inquirer; the Wall Street Journal (link here); the Financial Times the Irish Independent, and on many occasions in the Irish Times for example (here) and for example in March 2024.
Arran has also consulted on historic films and appeared as a guest on radio (Liveline on RTE radio) and on PBS television in the United States (on the travel series Ireland with Michael on PBS) and on Irish television, giving a virtual tour on 18th and 19th century historic architecture around Blackhall Place and the Broadstone station, to RTE’s Nationwide programme.
Arran has designed and led the Dublin city walking tours for the Irish Georgian Society since 2016 and the Little Museum of Dublin since 2022 as well as as walks on behalf of the Royal Hibernian Academy, Trinity College’s School of Medicine; the Liverpool School of Architecture, Oxford Brooks’ School of the Built Environment, the University of Bath, Furman University of South Carolina, and many other institutions.
Under the badge of his private tour firm, Dublin Decoded he has also created many private and bespoke, corporate tour events for major firms in Law, Tech and various surveying, architecture firms and engineering practices. (Walks for surveying, architecture firms are eligible for CPD points)
Arran is also available as a public speaker and frequently gives illustrated slide talks on various aspects of heritage, local history and in particular on art and architectural history. He has done so most recently for (iner alia) the Irish Georgian Society; the Upper Leeson Street Area Residents Association (ULSARA) for the South Georgian Core Residents (Association) and for the Association of Greek, Latin and Classics Teachers in Ireland.
Since 2019, Arran has given a series of online winter art talks January and February each year. these usually focus on the great traditions of European Art, from the 1200s to the 1700s. There is a particular focus on Italian art of that period, from all corners of Italy.
From October 2025 onward, Arran will start to lead small groups tours on art excursions to Italy, where he used to live, collaborating with tour agencies in Ireland and with local guides in Italy, to curate art itineraries of Italy’s great art cities, large and small. It is anticipated that the tours over the next 5 years will include Florence, Rome, Verona, Vicenza, Padua and Mantua, The autumn 2025 tour to Venice, in collaboration with Adams and Butler, was confirmed in May 2025 and is currently sold-out.
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