How to Stay Dry in Dublin

Option A: Get wet (most likely option).
Option B: When have a long stopover at the Dublin airport, plan ahead and pack an umbrella or other rain gear in your carry-on.
Option C: Find a variety of indoor attractions and stick to those.

What we did: A combination of A and C.

Between our flight from San Francisco arriving in Dublin early and our flight to Newcastle being delay couple hours, we ended up having over 6 hours to spend in Dublin. We navigated our tablets to a website describing a self guided walking tour of historic Dublin, and navigated our bodies to the tourist information desk to learn about the different bus options into the city center (Dublin is apparently even more backwards than San Francisco, and doesn't even pretend their version of BART goes to the airport), and headed out to the waiting area for the next bus. It was at this moment that the sky opened up and started pouring.  Oops, we packed our rain gear in our checked luggage.

Despite our adventure commencing with that moment dread, we still managed to avoid a drenching. The bus stop was sheltered, and by the time we arrived at Trinity College, the downpour had slowed to a drizzle. We enjoyed a stroll through the heart of this medieval center of learning (though we skipped the Book of Kells due to the long queue) and made our way to St. Stephen's Green, enjoyed a lovely walk through the park before the rain picked up again. Fortunately, the next stop on our walk was the national Museum of Ireland. And so the rest of our day progressed, finding interesting indoor attraction such as a museum of ancient books when the outdoor attractions such as Dublin castle got a bit too runny. On the whole it was a lovely way to spend a day.