John Caffrey

A middle-aged man in a tan blazer and blue shirt stands outdoors, wearing a lanyard badge that reads "Dublin Tour Guide".

Welcome to my city: Dublin.

I was born and raised on the Northside of Dublin, and have been active professionally as a tour guide since 2015. Not one for wasting time, I discovered tour guiding while awaiting the results of a couple of interviews for call centre management jobs. If life is what happens while you’re making other plans – then tour guiding is what happened to my career.

The fact that I prefer working outdoors – whatever the weather – probably owes something to my provenance from farming folk on Ireland’s rugged Western seaboard. In spite of these earthy origins, I can talk Irish Blarney in any of three languages (Russian, German and our own Gaelic) and have recently published an ebook on door to door sales training. I like to spice up my tour content with quirky and unusual items such as referencing the Viking Sagas (which mention Dublin a lot), the fact that Dublin once had its own time zone (did you know that?), and with a smattering of the local Liffeyside humour.

Tour guiding is one of the best decisions I ever made, and I just love the job. I like to think that it shows too, in the 400+ 5-star reviews which I have logged online to date, across numerous review websites.

Outside of my tour guiding schedule I’m an avid astronomy nerd, like to maintain a strict keep-fit routine and am a French cuisine aficionado.

  • A man gestures towards a historical plaque on a building wall whilst speaking to two people outside Bewley’s café.
  • A man holding folders speaks to two people in winter clothing outside a historic brick building with museum signs and banners visible in the background.
  • Three people walk under a stone archway on a city street lined with historic buildings.
  • People walk and sit on benches in a city park on a sunny day, with trees and buildings in the background.
  • Three adults stand outside a stone building; one person in a tan jacket holds papers and points while the other two, dressed in winter clothes, watch.
  • A man in a brown jacket stands in front of the General Post Office building in Dublin, Ireland, gesturing towards its neoclassical façade.

  • What a wonderful day with John Caffrey – an exceptionally experienced tour guide with a ton of information to share on the city. We were a party of 4 ranging from 15-51 and John kept us all in suspense as we moved through Trinity College, national gallery, the Dáil (Irish Parliament), Powerscourt Centre, and side streets off the main thoroughfare. My personal favourite was seeing an Oscar and an Emmy. Can totally recommend John for an exceptionally interesting few hours learning about the Fair city. As a Dubliner myself who has been away for 20 years it was lovely to reacquaint myself with all that’s fabulous about it. My friends and family with us loved it as much.

    - R .McMaster, February 2020

  • Highly recommend Dublin Tour Guide – Private Tours! We enjoyed having John as our guide for 2 days, 3’ish hours each day, just walking around city centre while he fielded our questions and imparted his wealth of historical knowledge! John met us promptly at our hotel as arranged in previous emails prior to our trip. Highly recommend John and this company for private tours!!! We travel often now and almost always hire private tour guides to make the most of our short time in cities and we have yet to be disappointed! Highly recommend!!

    Working with this company was very easy and communication was very good! Highly recommend! Private guides are really the way to go!!

    - Lorene S, June 2019

  • John Ducie was our tour guide in Dublin. He was an excellent tour guide, with an extensive knowledge of Irish history and culture. An encyclopedic knowledge of everything Irish including its turbulent history, genealogy of many major families, and Ireland’s many lovely gardens. Our tour was more than we expected. John helped us to maximize our time in Dublin and made suggestions as to how much we could reasonably see during our time frame. He promptly picked us up from the ship and made any adjustments needed to accommodate our needs.John has made us want to return to Dublin and surrounding areas to explore in more depth the many treasures there.

    - Tourist3180, August 2018

  • We really enjoyed the walking tour with you. We also loved the walking tour with John to Howth, it was an amazing day.

    After the Dublin Private tour we spent an week touring various towns along the Shannon River on a barge. Each day it was something new and it was the best vacation our family has ever taken. When we were coming home I asked each of the children what was there favorite part of the trip and one quickly responded it was the walking tour in Dublin with Carl! Our family talked a lot about the lack of understanding / education in the US about the adversity the Irish faced for hundreds of years and we feel better filling the void with the facts and stories provided in the 2 days we spent with Carl. I could not recommend this tour enough!!!

    - Chris B, July 2018

Meet the rest of our guides!

Dublin Tour Guide offers the highest quality tours of Dublin. We specialise in private walking tours for discerning travelers.

A man with long curly hair and a beard, wearing a navy blazer and purple jumper, stands on a city street with buildings in the background.
Garvan
A man with short brown hair and a beard stands outdoors on a city street, wearing a black leather jacket and smiling with his arms folded.
Carl
A man with short, greying hair wearing a brown jacket and a name badge stands outdoors near a stone wall, looking at the camera.
Mark
An older man wearing a flat cap, dark jacket, and name badge stands outdoors, smiling at the camera.
Austin
A man with glasses and a beard, wearing a checked shirt and dark blazer, stands on a tree-lined path, smiling at the camera.
Brendan
A man wearing glasses and a light blue shirt stands smiling on a tree-lined path with dappled sunlight and fallen leaves.
Eamon