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A true account by Emmet Lyons, LetzGo City Tours Guide: The Day Dublin Became Part of Who She Was
Some tours follow a map. Some follow a story.
This one followed both and what unfolded across a single afternoon in Dublin is the kind of moment that reminds you why travel, done right, can change the way you see yourself.
Emmet Lyons has been guiding in Dublin for years. He knows the streets, the history, the dates. But on one particular morning at St Patrick’s Park, a guest mentioned her great-grandfather had grown up on Golden Lane and what began as a standard check-in became something neither of them will ever forget.
This is his account of that day, in his own words.
It Started at St. Patrick's Park
Here’s a good story I have about a lovely experience I had while doing the Triple Headliner tour that really stayed with me.
We started, as always, doing guest check-in at St Patricks Park beside the Cathedral.
It was the regular tour opening. A good-humoured friendly welcome, setting the scene for what was to come and some historical context about the real St Patrick etc, before we went into the Cathedral.
During check-in, I had been chatting to guests, connecting with them and this lady started telling me that she was a second-generation Irish-American. Her great-grandfather had grown up in a tenement on Golden Lane. I asked her what else she knew about him and she went on to say that she didn’t know too much but, “He’d lost his father young. His mother was left with three children. He had gone to work as a messenger boy to help support the family. Later, he’d been involved in the War of Independence, and then during the civil war. He’d been imprisoned, released, and emigrated to the US at twenty-five.”
That was all she knew. Only fragments. No context.
So This Is Where It Started
So as we left St Patrick’s on our way to Dublin Castle I deliberately took the route that went down Golden Lane. I slowed the group down.
I explained what this area had been like in the early 1900s. Overcrowded tenements. Multiple families in single rooms. Shared toilets. Single cold tap water supply. Damp walls. Poverty.
I pointed out that this was likely where her great-grandfather had grown up.
She stopped walking.
She looked around properly for the first time.
And she said, very quietly, “So this is where it started.”
I talked about messenger boys, how young lads would run parcels and letters all over the city. Up Dame Street. Around the Castle. Back into the Liberties. Long hours. Low pay. No safety net.
She told me he’d never spoken about his childhood. Just that it had been “very hard.”
How Young Men Like Him Got Pulled Into the War
From there we went toward the Little Ship Street entrance of Dublin Castle. On the way, I began to widen the story.
I explained how young men like him became involved in the War of Independence. How they knew the streets. How that made them useful. How the war wasn’t heroic in the way people sometimes imagine — it was tense, secretive, exhausting.
Inside the Castle courtyard, I spoke about 1922. How the British had handed over the Castle to the new Free State, and how only six months later, because of the Treaty split, we had drifted into a horrible Civil War.
About how former comrades ended up on opposite sides.
About how fighting broke out in the city.
About buildings being occupied. Snipers. Barricades. Shelling.
I explained that if her great-grandfather was Anti-Treaty, there was a strong chance he had fought in and around this area.
She stood there listening, not taking photos, not checking her phone. Just absorbing it.
She said, “He was captured.”
That's Probably Why He Left
I explained what that meant. Internment. Prison. Then release after the Civil War.
And I told her something most families don’t realise: being released didn’t mean being welcomed back. Many men who were Anti-Treaty came out of prison to a city that had no time for them. Jobs were scarce. Politics were bitter. People remembered what side you’d been on.
Then, as we walked out of the Castle and down Dame Lane, I said to her:
“That’s probably why he left.”
She stopped again.
“No one ever explained that,” she said. “They just said he went to America.”
I told her: at twenty-five, after years of conflict, prison, and social isolation, emigration often wasn’t about opportunity. It was about escape.
Two Families. Same War. Different Choices.
When we reached Trinity Street, I shared something personal.
I told her that my own grandfather had been in the National Army.
Which meant he had been on the other side in 1922.
She looked at me and said, “So they could have been fighting each other.”
“Yes,” I replied. “In these very streets.”
That really landed with her.
Not in a dramatic way. In a quiet way.
She just stood there for a moment and said, “That’s extraordinary.”
We continued past Molly Malone, down Suffolk Street, along Nassau Street, and into Trinity to see the Book of Kells.
By the time we were in the exhibition, she was looking at things differently.
When I talked about preservation, about how the manuscript survived centuries of upheaval, she connected it immediately to her own family story.
I Came Here Looking for Pride
Afterwards, back on College Green as the tour had ended, when the rest of the group drifted off, she stayed behind.
She opened a small notebook and showed me her family tree.
Her great-grandfather’s name. Date of birth. Golden Lane.
She said, “I’ve carried this around for years. Today is the first time it makes sense.”
She told me she’d grown up hearing he was a hero. Later, that he’d been on the “wrong side.” No one had ever explained what that meant.
Now she understood that he was a young man who’d grown up poor, taken responsibility too early, lived through two wars, gone to prison, and then found himself with no place in his own city.
She said something that really stuck with me.
“I came here looking for pride,” she said. “I’m leaving with understanding.”
And she added that knowing my grandfather had been on the opposite side didn’t make the story uncomfortable. It made it human.
Two families. Same war. Different choices. Same consequences.
She hugged me before she left.
Not in a dramatic way. Just genuine gratitude.
That's What Guiding Is About
And for me, that’s what guiding is about.
It’s not about reciting dates.
It’s about helping someone stand on a street like Golden Lane, walk through the Castle, down Dame Lane, across Trinity Street, and suddenly see their own family story clearly for the first time.
That day, Dublin stopped being a destination for her.
It became part of who she was.
Find Your Golden Lane
Emmet’s story didn’t happen in a museum or a textbook, it happened on the streets of Dublin, with the right guide asking the right questions. Every tour we run is a chance for that same connection.
Come walk with us, and let one of our guides help you find your story.
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