My wife is a McDaniel, so it was high time we finally made it to Ireland.
The city has just over a half-million residents and is much smaller than I expected. We found the people to be especially friendly and helpful. Our Airbnb hosts were great and helped us plan our public transportation use and recommended spots we might like to see and bars we should check out. Taking the tram into the city center on our first day, a lady actually completed the transaction at the ticket kiosk for us when we asked what stop to get off. Dublin is very walkable, compact and with great public transportation options.
So, during our limited time in town, we were able to cover all the highlights and actually passed by many of them several times.

We got to hit many of our top sights using the Dublin Bus hop-on hop-off city tour, which covers the complete area. We hit a museum, Trinity College, Dublin Castle and went past the zoo, war memorial. The cost is 16 euro per person and gives yours two days of bus use -- service runs 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Now that we know our way around, we are looking forward to visiting again and using Dublin as our home base while we take a couple day trips to the countryside.
Thanks for reading.
Happy travels,
JR