Ireland's capital city has many different faces -- the city's outdoor markets, Moore Street to Temple Bar to Thomas Street; the Custom House Docks development of shiny, glazed office blocks; Smithfield with its chimney converted to a viewing tower and its striking row of giant steel masts; Temple Bar, now a cultural and artistic centre crammed with restaurants and pubs, galleries and street markets; Grafton Street, Dublin's fashionable shopping street for the last two hundred years; Dublin's many excellent museums and theatres; great architecture creating a bridge from the Dublin of today with the living history of the past.
The last twenty years have seen a mood of change, and a new pride in Dublin, emerge. The opening up of new pedestrian routes to districts like Temple Bar and Smithfield and the building of a new pedestrian bridge over the Liffey have helped to restore a people-friendly feeling to the city. Dublin has changed within the space of ten or twelve years into a vibrant, active, multicultural city, with many new buildings.