The Liberties still shops the old way, in part. Meath Street has butchers, fruit and veg, bargain shops and cafes where people are served by name. Francis Street is the antiques street, dealers and galleries that have been there for decades, with newer cafes and apartments in between. Thomas Street has the art college, the old church, and the long brewery wall running down to St James’s Gate. Around all of that are St Patrick’s Cathedral, the Coombe, the Teeling, Pearse Lyons and Roe & Co distilleries, and the student blocks and hotels that have gone up in the last ten years. Website design in The Liberties has to work for a trader whose customers have known them for forty years and for the ones who arrived last week. We are Dublin based and we meet owners on the street, in the shop.
Three kinds of footfall
Locals, who walk Meath Street and Thomas Street daily and still prefer to be told by a neighbour. Visitors, who come in huge numbers for the Guinness Storehouse, St Patrick’s Cathedral and the distilleries, and who navigate entirely by phone: “lunch near Guinness Storehouse”, “antiques Dublin”, “traditional pub Liberties”. And students, at NCAD on Thomas Street and in the accommodation blocks along Thomas Street and Cork Street, who search for a barber, a laundrette, a cheap lunch and a late pub in their first week and stick with what they find.
The locals you already have. The other two groups are found or lost on Google Maps and in the first screen of results, and for a growing share of them on ChatGPT, which answers “where should I eat near the Guinness Storehouse” by reading websites and reviews. We have written about what AI search means for a local business if you want the detail.
What a Liberties site has to say
The street, first. Meath Street, Francis Street and Thomas Street are names visitors have in front of them on a map, so the site should name the street, name The Liberties, say Dublin 8 and carry the D08 routing key. Hours are critical for the market trade, since a visitor planning a morning on Meath Street needs to know who opens early and who closes on a Monday. Photos of the real shop, the real stall, the real stock. For an antiques dealer, photographs of current pieces with prices change everything, because a collector in Galway or in Boston searches by object, not by street.
Transport notes help too: the Luas red line at James’s, and the buses along Thomas Street and Cork Street.
Who we build for here
Butchers and grocers that want a simple page with hours and what is in this week. Antique dealers who want their stock online with a way to enquire or pay a deposit. Cafes and restaurants that want the menu in their own hands and a steady flow of Google reviews. Pubs that want the music nights listed and visitors to find them. Tour guides who want dates, a price and card payment. Barbers who want online booking. Picture framers and small galleries on Francis Street that want their work seen beyond the street.
Instagram-only on Francis Street
A lot of the newer Liberties businesses, vintage sellers, bakers and coffee places among them, run only on Instagram, and a lot of the older ones run on nothing. An Instagram grid cannot be found by the visitor searching Google from a hotel in Dublin 2, cannot show your hours and cannot take a payment. A page can, and it does not need to be big.
Plans
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month: site, .ie domain, hosting, Google listing, a page you edit yourself. Complete, at €1,499 and €100 a month, adds payments, bookings, review requests and a chat assistant. No contract. See the pricing page, and for the dealers on Francis Street, the antique dealers page.