Dublin With Kids: Ages, Prices, Hours
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Dublin is an easy city with children, mostly because the good free options are large and outdoors and the paid ones are cheap by Western European standards. The planning work is in the hours and the age limits, both of which move more than the prices do.
The paid list, with the numbers that matter
| Place | Price | Ages and hours |
|---|---|---|
| Dublin Zoo, Phoenix Park | €23 adult, €70 family, about 10% off online | opens 09:30, closes 18:00 summer and 16:30 winter |
| The Ark, Temple Bar | varies by production | purpose-built for ages 2 to 12 |
| Dublinia, Christ Church | €16 / €14.50 / €11.50 | daily 10:00 to 18:00, last admission 17:00 |
| EPIC, CHQ Docklands | €22 adult, €11 child | 10:00 to 18:45, last admission 17:00 |
| Casino Model Railway Museum, Malahide | see the museum | DART plus a ten minute walk |
| Gaiety Theatre panto | varies | 22 November 2026 to 3 January 2027 |
Dublin Zoo holds 400 or so animals across about 70 species, with the African Savanna and the Gorilla Rainforest as the two named habitats worth timing your loop around. A Flexi Ticket is usable any time within two months, which is genuinely useful if the forecast is bad on the day you booked. Prices and opening at dublinzoo.ie .
The Ark, a Cultural Centre for Children at 11a Eustace Street, Temple Bar is purpose-built for ages 2 to 12 and programmes theatre, music, literature, art, film and dance. The programme turns over every few weeks, so check current listings at ark.ie rather than planning around a show. The booking office runs Monday to Friday 10:00 to 16:30 and for an hour before performances.
The Casino Model Railway Museum in Malahide village holds the Cyril Fry collection, roughly 350 handmade models built between the 1920s and Fry’s death in 1972, in the restored thatched Casino Cottage Orné. It reopened under that name in 2020. Details at modelrailwaymuseum.ie .
The Gaiety Theatre on South King Street has staged an annual Christmas pantomime since 1873, and that is the family draw here rather than a year-round children’s programme. Robin Hood runs 22 November 2026 to 3 January 2027: gaietytheatre.ie .
The free list, which is the better list
- The Phoenix Park: 707 hectares, open 24 hours, with a wild fallow deer herd, the Victorian Walled Garden and playgrounds. The largest enclosed public park in any European capital.
- St Stephen’s Green: playground, duck ponds, bandstand, and a five minute walk from Grafton Street.
- Bull Island, over the wooden bridge from Clontarf: a UNESCO Biosphere of dunes and saltmarsh with internationally important wintering birds, and Dollymount Strand along its seaward side. Flat, huge and windy.
- The Howth cliff loops, 25 to 35 minutes out on the DART at €2, with four waymarked routes from about 6 km to about 10 km. The cliff edge is unfenced, so hold hands on the narrow sections.
- The National Museum of Ireland, Archaeology on Kildare Street: free, no booking, and the bog bodies and the Viking Ireland gallery do more for a nine year old than most things you pay for. The Dead Zoo Lab at Collins Barracks is also free, with about 1,300 natural history specimens on show. Both at museum.ie .
Viking Splash
An amphibious vehicle leaves Stephen’s Green North, drives the city, then enters the water at the Grand Canal Basin. Roaring at pedestrians is part of the format, which children love and teenagers do not. It is one of the few things here that works equally well in rain.
Kilmainham Gaol, and the age guidance parents ask about
Kilmainham comes up on every Dublin list, so the practical answer is worth having. It is a former prison and a site of political imprisonment and execution, where the leaders of the 1916 Rising were held, where Parnell was held in 1881 and 1882, and where de Valera was the last prisoner released in 1924.
The museum’s own guidance is that it is not recommended for children under 6. Strollers are not permitted on the tour, the guided tour is an hour on its feet, and the subject matter is imprisonment and execution. Older children who have covered any of this at school generally get a great deal from it; younger ones will not. Tickets are €8 adult, €4 student, €20 family, guided-only and online-only, released 28 days ahead at midnight through kilmainhamgaolmuseum.ie . Parents decide, and the age guidance is there to help you decide rather than to rule it out.
Wet-weather order of play
The forecast in Dublin is rain in every month, so have two indoor answers ready at all times. In order of how long they hold a child’s attention: the free National Museum on Kildare Street, Dublinia next to Christ Church with its Viking and medieval displays, EPIC in the Docklands at €22 adult and €11 child with a free return visit within ten days, and the Dead Zoo Lab at Collins Barracks.
For fixed-price family slots in one list, compare Dublin family activities on GetYourGuide or check Viator’s options .
Buy a Leap Card for each child at €0.65 a journey, capping at €1.95 a day, and the whole of this page becomes reachable for the price of one adult ticket. Then pick a day out on the coast or something for the grown-ups on the evening somebody babysits.