Smithfield: how Dublin’s old horse fair became the city’s most surprising neighbourhood

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You hear the cobblestones before you see them. Smithfield Square, the great open plaza on Dublin’s northside, has been at the centre of city life for over three hundred years — and it has stories to tell.

Once the site of one of Europe’s longest-running horse fairs, Smithfield is one of Dublin’s most compelling neighbourhoods. Equal parts historic and evolving, it rewards the visitor who arrives on foot and looks up.

The square that started with horses

Smithfield Market was established in 1664. For over three centuries, it was the place where Dublin’s working horses were bought, sold and traded — thousands of animals filing through a square paved with the same cobblestones that still line the ground today.

The horse fair did not disappear when the city changed around it. It simply adapted. On the first Sunday of every month, Smithfield still hosts a horse and pony market — a living fragment of something ancient, playing out in the shadow of modern apartment blocks and craft beer bars. Arrive before 10am for the best of it.

The Old Jameson Distillery

The most visited building in Smithfield is the Old Jameson Distillery, and with good reason. This was the home of Jameson Irish whiskey from 1780 until the late twentieth century, when production moved to Midleton in Cork. The building remained, and today it is one of Dublin’s finest visitor experiences — part history, part tasting room.

The guided tour takes you through the whiskey-making process, into vaulted stone cellars and past copper pot stills that still carry the faint smell of grain and time. The tasting at the end involves comparing Irish, Scottish and American whiskies side by side — a genuine education rather than a sales pitch.

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Culture, cinema and a street worth walking

Turn south from Smithfield and you reach Bow Street, where the Lighthouse Cinema has been championing independent and arthouse film since 2008. It is the kind of place that reminds you Dublin has always had a thoughtful, culture-obsessed streak — one that has nothing to do with Temple Bar.

Smithfield is not a tourist district, which is precisely why eating and drinking here tends to be more honest. The restaurants are smaller. The menus are shorter. The staff actually know what is on them.

Getting here and what to do first

Smithfield is fifteen minutes’ walk from O’Connell Street, or a single stop on the Luas Red Line from the Four Courts. If you are coming from the southside, cross at Father Mathew Bridge and follow the quays before turning inland.

Walk the square before you go inside anywhere. Look at the gas torch pillars that mark its edges, installed during a 1990s regeneration project. Look at the Georgian warehouse conversions on the perimeter, where apartments now occupy windows that once stored grain and wool. Then look at the cobblestones and consider how many hooves have crossed them.

If you are exploring the northside more broadly, the village of Stoneybatter is ten minutes’ walk to the west — one of Dublin’s most authentic residential neighbourhoods. The story of the Liberties, just south of the river, is worth knowing too. For a broader view of what Ireland has to offer, Love to Visit Ireland is a good place to start planning your trip.

Smithfield and the northside story

Smithfield is part of a broader northside narrative that Dublin is only beginning to fully appreciate. For years, the southside — Grafton Street, Temple Bar, Merrion Square — collected most of the tourist footfall. The northside had its own character: grittier, less polished, more real.

That is changing. Smithfield has led the way. New restaurants, new galleries, new residents — and underneath all of it, those three-hundred-and-sixty-year-old cobblestones, which have seen rather more than any of us.

Is the Smithfield horse fair still held in Dublin?

Yes. A horse and pony market takes place on Smithfield Square on the first Sunday of every month. It is free to attend and has been running in some form since the market was established in 1664. Arrive before 10am to see it at its best.

What is the Old Jameson Distillery in Smithfield?

The Old Jameson Distillery on Bow Street is a whiskey heritage centre and visitor attraction on the original site of Jameson’s Dublin distillery. It offers guided tours, whiskey tastings and a cocktail bar. Production moved to Midleton in Cork in 1971, but the building was preserved and reopened as an attraction, now operating as the Bow St. Experience.

How do I get to Smithfield from Dublin city centre?

Smithfield Square is roughly fifteen minutes on foot from O’Connell Street. The Luas Red Line stops directly at the square — one stop from the Four Courts. The square itself is pedestrianised, so allow a little time to explore on foot once you arrive.

Smithfield does not ask for your approval. It simply goes on being itself — ancient cobblestones and modern life running alongside each other, the same as they always have. Come on a Sunday morning, when the horses are here and the city is still half-asleep, and you will understand why Dubliners have been gathering in this square for three and a half centuries.

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