Ah, the city map. Opening one up declares you, loudly, as a tourist. What approach to take? Personally, I favour selecting the area one is going to visit that day, folding and back-folding the map in question until it has that sector of the city uppermost and then concealing the folded map in the back pocket, so that it can be whipped out and studied furtively. That way, it’s only the cameras and brightly coloured cagool that gives you away as a tourist.

In Dublin though, this doesn’t matter. To stand out as a tourist in Dublin, a city where long crocodiles of European schoolchildren mill along the pavement, all sporting identical orange backpacks and conversing at a volume normally only encountered at a rock concert or sonic weapons research facility, a city where people walk around looking at the architecture so that their heads are currently bent up at a seventy degree angle, meaning they are constantly bumping into crocodiles of European schoolchildren, a city where every second person has a carrier bag from the Guinness shop – to look like a tourist in this city, you’d have to stand with your map fully unfurled, simultaneously taking pictures of yourself wearing a bright green hat and drinking a Guinness.

The only problem with unfurling a map in Dublin is that, given the weather, it’s not unlike hoisting the topgallants during a typhoon

The true test of the clarity of any map is its ability to aid navigation under stressful conditions. An extreme example of this is using your red torch to illuminate your strategic map while whispering coordinates for the airstrike into a tiny microphone with the intent of giving some naughty men with AK47s a very short-lived surprise. Alternatively, you could spill out of an Italian restaurant into a rainy Dublin night and find yourself having to navigate back to your hotel, which you have only visited once, in the dry daylight, in the dark and in the rain. Which is horizontal.

Although I used this map as a pedestrian, for the driver, the most important thing on this map are those little arrows marking out the direction of Dublin’s one-way system. Dublin is small for a capital city but they have managed to fit about seventeen million miles worth of road into a small area by the simple process of inventing a one-way system that would appear to fold space. Another reason why folding the map is so useful.

Navigating in Dublin with this map is actually a breeze (rather than a gale). The scale is large and the print is easy to read, even when it’s wet and dark. The map withstood lots of folding and refolding and even a couple of unfurlings. There are splotches of colour, which were useful for locating pedestrianised areas or the river (once you know where the Liffy, Temple Bar and Grafton Street is, you can orientate yourself pretty well), while prominent buildings are marked out in red.

It’s even fairly east to work out how long it’s going to take to get from where you are to where you want to be, which is good for making that all important taxi or walk it decision. It’s always best to walk it in Dublin of course, there’s just so much to see and so many streets and side streets to explore. If you’re in a taxi it’s hard to hear the enticing music coming from the bar with the steamed up windows suggesting a fug or warmth within. Luckily the scale of the map means that you could probably find the bar again the next night – if you haven’t disgraced yourself and they’ll still serve you, or worse still, they’ve added a photo of you to their wall of fame and shame and shameful fame.

It has to be said that the city lends itself to navigation. They love their street signs – the fact that they are all in English and Gaelic means that they are on every street corner – trying to protect a national language means that they are passionate about labelling, although the A to Z streetfinder was in English, well, you are a tourist after all. ( )