The Dublin buses have two methods of payment. The first is cash (in coins), and the second is an initially mysterious little box to the right of the door. Turns out there are also electronic cards of a few flavors that work in these boxes. One is a card that holds a certain amount of credit, and when it goes empty, I suppose the machine makes some sort of rude noise. The one we picked was a three-day Rambler, which basically gives us unlimited rides on the bus for three days. Since we're staying a bus-ride from downtown, just going to and from the B&B will pay for one of these. I just wish we'd known to pick one up when we first arrived, since we got dropped off right in front of the newsstand where we ended up buying the card. You can buy them at just about any newsstand or convenience store in town. No need to pre-purchase.

One other note about these: they're a lot more useful if you have a map of where the buses actually run. We did a lot of unnecessary (but useful, from the point of orienting ourselves) walking that could have been avoided if we'd had a bus map. Sadly, they'd run out of maps and no more were scheduled to be printed until the following spring, when tourist season heats up again.

Another hint is that the Rambler cards are good for a given number of days. If you buy one in the evening, don't use it until the next day, since otherwise you'll have used a full day of card on a single bus-ride.