Lonely Planet Six Degrees: Dublin

Dublin—a charming provincial backwater or thriving, multicultural metropolis? Presenter Asha Gill hooks up with a six-pack of Dubliners to find out why everyone’s talking up the Irish capital as Europe’s hottest ticket. She meets: Christian Kötey - an artist putting a dash of paganism back into Halloween. His mission? To build the biggest wickerman the city’s seen in over a thousand years and set it alight on the scariest night in Dublin. David McSavage – a sharp-tongued busker and comedian who takes Asha for a cruise in a plastic boat down the Sniffy Liffey before taking the wheel of a 4WD and tackling the Wicklow Hills – blindfolded. Iris Meehan - burlesque performer by night, urban cowgirl by day. Iris gets a full body makeover at the wrong end of a spraygun, takes Asha into a subculture of horse lovers on a high rise urban estate and goes head-to-head with sulky racers on the shores of the Irish Sea. Lorcan Collins – Irish historian and raconteur – brings the city’s past to life. Asha gets an insight into a Dublin uprising that lands her in a damp, dark cell at Kilmainham Gaol. Tina Akinola-Jinad - the organiser of The Most Beautiful African Girl in Ireland beauty pageant – gives Asha a backstage pass to the pageant’s dress rehearsals and takes her to a Pentecostal church so raucous they built it on an industrial estate so no-one would be disturbed by the commotion. David Bassett – a young entrepreneur with an adventure company that gives Dublin’s city slickers a day out in the country that they’ll never forget.