What Belongs In A Dublin Picnic Bag
Words: Tobi Ilori
For the canal wall, Stephen’s Green Park, Phoenix Park or wherever the group chat has decided to sit down, here’s what we’d actually bring.
The second Dublin gets hoodie-optional weather, people start making very brave outdoor plans.
Someone says, “we should sit outside.” Someone else says they’ll “bring something.” Nobody asks what that means. Then six adults end up gathered around one open bag of crisps, eating like archaeologists at a dig site.
That is not a picnic. That is a warning.
This is for the Stephen’s Green, canal, Phoenix Park, Iveagh Gardens, Dún Laoghaire pier, or “we’re meeting somewhere near town” kind of picnic. The one that starts in the group chat and ends with someone panic-buying napkins on the way.
A proper Dublin picnic does not need linen napkins, tiny forks or anyone saying “grazing board” with a straight face. It needs food that travels well, feeds people properly, survives being carried across town in a tote bag, and does not require full cutlery negotiations in a public park.
This is not picnic law. If your own picnic bag looks completely different, grand. We want to hear those shouts too.
But if you’re trying to build something that will keep people fed, happy, and less likely to suggest the pub after 20 minutes, this is where we’d start.
A Sandwich That Counts As Lunch
Every picnic needs one thing that counts as actual lunch.
Crisps are important. Cheese is important. Fruit is there pretending to be balance, but without a proper sandwich, the whole thing starts to feel like people nibbling around the idea of food.
This is where Tír Deli makes sense. Their sandwiches feel built for this exact job: sturdy, filling, and far less likely to collapse into sadness before you reach the grass. You want something that can handle a walk, a bag, and the emotional pressure of being the main event.
If Tír is not on your route, Green Bench Café, The Pepper Pot, Poulet Bonne Femme are all worth considering. The Pepper Pot brings the slightly fancier sandwich energy. Poulet Bonne Femme is good if your picnic needs proper chicken involved. Green Bench is the kind of place people mention with confidence.
The sandwich has one job: arrive intact and make the picnic feel like a meal rather than a loose collection of snacks.
One Good Irish Cheese
This is the part that makes people think you have your life together.
You do not need six cheeses. You do not need a tasting note. You do not need to start explaining rinds to people on a patch of grass. You need one good Irish cheese.
Gubbeen is a strong shout if you can get it. It has enough creaminess and character to do the job without turning the picnic into a dairy lecture. Pick it up from somewhere like Sheridans, Fallon & Byrne or Loose Canon, depending on where you are and how much you want to look like you planned ahead.
Add crackers. Add chutney, or something pickled. Maybe a bit of bread if you are feeling generous.
Suddenly the whole picnic looks intentional. One cheese. One crunch. One sharp thing. You are going to the park, not opening a rural tasting room.
The Crisps Are Not Optional
This is where the picnic becomes honest.
You can talk about sandwiches and cheese all you want, but eventually someone is going to open a bag of crisps and the whole group will descend like they have been personally wronged by hunger.
The genius level move here is to bring a little more considered than whatever was closest to the till.
O’Donnells Ballymaloe Relish & Cheddar Cheese is a strong shout. It is specific, Irish, and has enough going on that it does not need a dip to justify itself.
If you want to go classic, bring Tayto Cheese & Onion. No explanation needed. If you want something with a bit more “I thought about this for three extra seconds,” bring Keogh’s. And if someone arrives with Manhattan Cheese & Onion, respect them. That person knows exactly what they are doing.
The actual move is simple. Bring one big bag for the group. Then bring one secret backup bag.
Do not announce the backup bag too early. Wait until morale drops. Then reveal it like state intelligence. Nobody has ever said, “We brought too many crisps. That sentence does not exist in nature.
Fruit That Behaves
Fruit has one job. Make the rest of the bag look less like a cry for help.
The key is to bring fruit that behaves itself. Strawberries or grapes from Moore Street are perfect if you are city-centre and can make the route work. They are easy to share, easy to carry and do not require anyone to start performing surgery in public.
There is something very Dublin about grabbing fruit from Moore Street before heading towards a park and briefly convincing yourself that the whole picnic is now balanced.
Grapes work. Strawberries work. Apples work. Blueberries work if the punnet survives the journey.
Do not bring a melon unless you have also brought a knife, a board, napkins, and the personality of someone who enjoys logistics. Do not bring anything that needs peeling, slicing or quiet negotiation.
Fruit should refresh people. It should not create admin.
The Sweet Thing That Stops A Pub Move
Every picnic needs something sweet, not as a cute extra, but because people get restless.
After a certain amount of time sitting outside, someone checks the location of the nearest pub. Someone says, “we could move somewhere.” Someone else starts putting their shoes back on with intent. This is when you produce a pastry, cookie, truffle or something baked, to buy yourself another half hour of outdoor socialising.
Scéal is a good shout here. Their pastries bring the exact kind of “oh, you actually brought something good” energy that briefly restores faith in the plan. You do not need to specify the exact pastry. Just get whatever looks most likely to make the group stop talking for a second.
Bread 41 is another strong move for cookies, pastries or something baked that makes people ask where it came from. If you want something smaller and easier to pass around, Harry’s Nut Butter chocolate truffles are a very good picnic shout. They are tidy, shareable and exactly the kind of thing that disappears while everyone pretends they only had one.
A good sweet thing will not save a bad picnic, but it can delay the pub suggestion long enough to make the whole outdoor plan feel worth it.
The Mineral: TK Red Lemonade
This is where the picnic needs a bit of colour.
Yes, bring water. Actual water. Real water. Nobody admits they need it until they have been sitting in the sun for 40 minutes and suddenly start communicating only through blinking.
But the hero drink here is TK Red Lemonade.
It is fizzy, bright, nostalgic and somehow always feels like it belongs beside crisps, sandwiches and someone asking, “Do we actually know where we’re sitting?” It brings a very specific Irish energy. Half picnic, half communion afters, fully correct.
It is sweet, cold, easy to share and more interesting than one sad bottle of supermarket own-brand orange. If you want the grown-up version, grand, bring cans or cider too. But the red lemonade earns its place first.
No picnic drink should be warm. That is how optimism becomes punishment.
The Actual Cooler Bag
A cooler bag has no glamour.
It will not be in the first photo. Nobody will tag it. Nobody will gather around it and say, “wow, incredible work.” But it may be the only thing standing between you and warm cheese, sweaty fruit and drinks that taste like they have been left in a car boot by someone who hates you.
The hero pick is simple: a small cooler backpack or collapsible cooler bag. You can usually find picnic bits in places like Dunnes, ALDI, Tiger, Decathlon or wherever is currently pretending summer is guaranteed. Stock changes, so check before walking in with the confidence of a person who thinks the middle aisle owes them a lifestyle.
Also bring napkins. Bring wipes. Bring a rubbish bag. Bring cups. Bring a bottle opener if anything in the bag requires one. And bring a blanket.
Someone always says, “we’ll be fine.” That person is usually sitting directly on damp grass five minutes later.
The boring things are only boring until nobody has them. Then they become civilisation.
The perfect Dublin picnic is not perfect.
It is one proper sandwich, one good Irish cheese, Irish crisps doing most of the emotional labour, fruit that behaves, something sweet to stop the pub suggestion, TK Red Lemonade for the nostalgia, and a cooler bag quietly holding society together.
So do not overthink it. Bring food that travels. Bring food people can share. Bring more napkins than you think any human group could possibly need.
And whatever you do, do not be the person who says, “I’ll bring vibes.”
Vibes do not feed people.
