With pints at €8 and hostel beds at €1k, who will actually be coming to Dublin for Paddy’s Day?

Shared hostel dormitory with King Charles and Elon Musk, anyone?

March is upon us which means the countdown to St Patrick’s Day is on.

After years of stumbling down the cobbled streets of Temple Bar in the mandated leprechaun hat, pre-mixed naggin in hand, many Dubliners grow weary of spending the holiday in town by the time they hit their late 20’s. Instead, the baton is handed over to tourists and bright-eyed young ‘uns, ready to paint the town green.

A busy Temple Bar on Paddy’s Day in Dublin, image via Shutterstock 

But who exactly will be taking over the city this year, with pint prices higher than ever and quotes of over €1,600 to spend the weekend in a shared hostel dorm?

If you get chatting to tourists on a night out in Dublin, the sentiment is generally the same – they love it, but probably wouldn’t come back because of how expensive it is. If you talk to a young person in Dublin, they’re usually shocked that tourists even enjoy the city seeing as countless tourist attractions have been replaced with hotels. And even with that, there’s not one affordable hotel room to be had in the city, and not just on Paddy’s weekend. Make it make sense.

This year, Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Festival is looking to “invite you to Dublin to help us celebrate our part and our place in our global community”, which is obviously lovely, but who’s really invited when the cheapest available accommodation is well over a grand, and pints are hitting the €8 mark in parts of the city?

The St. Patrick’s Festival website insists “Dublin is the place to be this March”.  

If you were looking to stay in a boujie or even halfway decent hotel room on one of the busiest weekends of the year, fair enough. You’d probably be expecting to pay over the odds. But a bunk in a shared hostel? There’s no reason for that to be the price of a month’s rent (and Dublin rent, at that). There needs to be a budget-friendly option for people who want to experience Paddy’s Day in Dublin, and a single bed in a room with ten other people isn’t asking a lot.

David Beckham recently spent a weekend in Dublin with his son, and the running joke is that the only way to afford a trip here is to sign a £150million deal to be the ambassador of a highly controversial World Cup tournament. Hopefully his fee covered the cost of pints for himself and Cruz over the few days, but you wouldn’t know anymore.

Header image via Shutterstock 

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