You might have noticed that we went along to the relaunch of Dublin Bus’s sightseeing tours and had the chance to sample the experience on board one of the smartly re-branded open-top buses as part of the city sightseeing tour.
The idea was that we’d get just a taste of the experiences that the hundreds of thousands of tour passengers have every year aboard the big green bus, and as with all good experiences they left us wanting more.
But we had the chance to follow up and have a sit down with our two tour guides from the launch event a few days later. Tyrone and Dave called over to our offices for a quick chat and a cuppa, however we certainly got more than we bargained for.
We were regaled for over an hour with talk of the famous characters from the history of Dublin, from Jonathan Swift to Padraig Pearse. We were told of jokes with unsuspecting tourists, talked architecture, art and music, of school children saluting the tricolour on O’Connell Street and learned the best back roads through the city when you’re driving a 21 tonne bus.
Our two guides, Tyrone and Dave are both native Dubs who have a natural love and knowledge of the city, but they also go through an intensive training programme with Fáilte Ireland to make sure that they’re fully prepared for all eventualities and can alter their tours to suit their listening audience.
A bus full of Scottish rugby fans are going to have different interests to a class of primary school children for instance. What comes across most though it that despite the bus driver/tour guide role is a solitary one there is a tremendous amount of teamwork between the drivers.
They share historical facts, stories, songs and books among each other, carry out their own little bits of city research and share them with their fellow drivers. They even take international trips together to check out the competition, including some recent jaunts to Edinburgh and Malta.
We asked the lads what their favourite part of Dublin was…
For more information on the DoDublin tours, click here – and make sure to follow us on social media, where you will find many more interesting snippets from our interview with the lads in the coming days!
