Well Dublin's no different to any other city in the world at night, be careful if on your own.

If your looking for places to stay, www.daft.ie is your best best.

Galway would also be a good place to play music

Where abouts specifically, I don't know

Outside of Dublin, The Stables in Mullingar is good. They always have slots for up and coming musicians...saw a then-unknown Josh Ritter there about 6 years ago.

I played there once, many moons ago. It's a nice venue but all those mirrors were a little off putting!

What mirrors?

It could well be the palace loft in Athlone I'm thinking of....but I was sure there were loads of mirrors around the room?

I spent a few hours with a hooker in Florence once who had a room like that. Her name was Monica. Maybe you know her?!?

I was wondering if anyone has any tips about playing live music around Ireland as a tourist and any suggestions on:

1.Traveling with an acoustic guitar - yes. Keep it in a waterproof case. Not only will this keep your guitar dry, but it also serves well as a personal safety floatation device (or life jacket) should you accidentally venture near, or into, a floodplane.

2. Places to play - pubs, after 10pm coz otherwise, the'll be pretty much empty.

3. Anything I should be concerned about as a female tourist going around Dublin by myself to play music at night - apart from the price of eating, drinking, acommodation, wandering up the wrong street in to trackie land, getting jumped on by an english stag party, getting stuck with two italians for the night who you barley understand, being held up by a strung out jakie, accidentally venturing out to Lucan & getting lost in a maze of housing estates, being visited by a flood & a plague of locusts, then no. Nothing at al to be worrying about.. shure yule be grand!

4. Other parts of Ireland good for playing live music - Yes. There are other parts of Ireland.