Dublin, NH

Dublin New Hampshire is just about as cute and New England-y as you can get. There are no shopping centers or major roads other than Rt.101. There is a small general store where you can get wonderful sandwiches, some groceries, wine, and wool for knitting. The owners, a young couple with a small child, live above the store and raise sheep next to the parking area which also serves as a parking area for the post office. The post office never seems to be staffed by more than two people at a time and, as you can imagine, they know or recognize almost everybody in town. In fact, a number of the streets in Dublin don’t have postal service, so a good portion of the town stops into the post office during the week.

Just up the road is the Dublin Public Library, a charming building which has two large fireplaces and still uses a card catalogue. Next-door is the town hall where you can often find a sign on the door alerting you that so-and-so is grabbing lunch and will be right back. Across the street is Yankee Publishing, home to Yankee Magazine and The Old Farmer’s Almanac. They have a chalkboard facing the road with town updates that includes notices for the next-door church rummage sale, among other things. When it rains, all the chalk runs off. Behind Yankee, is the Dublin School, a private boarding school founded in 1935.

If you continue up 101 about half a mile from the library, you’ll come to Dublin Lake. The lake is large, clear and surrounded by gorgeous homes, views of Mt. Monadnock, horses, and, carefully hidden in the trees, the Dublin Lake Club, a highly exclusive club with tennis courts and a sandy beach. Residents of Dublin often park around the narrow road that surrounds the lake to take walks and swims. At around three or four pm, when the weather is nice, you can often see battered pickup trucks parked off to the side of the road and men in work boots quietly fishing, sometimes with a dog.

One of the many trails up Mt. Monadnock begins by Dublin Lake. Monadnock is worth mentioning because it is the most visible and stunning landmark in the area. The word “Monadnock” means the “mountain that stands alone” in the Abnacki Native American language, aptly named because it stands one thousand feet above any other mountain within thirty miles. It is the most-hiked mountain in the United States. One man, Larry Davis climbed the mountain for nearly eight years straight. Every single day.

According to Dublin historians John Harris and Nancy Campbell, Dublin was first named Monadnock No. 3 in the 18th century by real estate speculators. Although it is unclear why it was eventually named Dublin, most sources seem to agree that it was probably named after Dublin, Ireland. For the first century of its existence, the town was populated by subsistence farmers who raised sheep and ate bean porridge. It gradually became a summer destination, drawing artists and writers like Abbott H. Thayer and Mark Twain. Today, Dublin is still home to artists, writers, seasonal residents and sheep.