An Post

This Post Office can be so busy so choose your time wisely. Don’t go in here at opening, lunchtime or near closing!
However, very helpful and friendly staff!

A post office that stays open during lunch — hurrah!
Also a decent size inside with lots of counters, of which more than half were staffed at lunchtime — excellent!
I was here however to collect a parcel that couldn’t be delivered and for that I had to go around the back. If you need to do the same, then go through the gate to the right as you look at the front of the PO. OUt the back to the left you’ll find a door and a small vestibule, here the nice man will give you your parcel.
They only issue I would have is the docket doesn’t really say that you need to go around the back and there is one A4 sized notice inside the main PO (that I could see) saying that for collections, go around the back. I’d been caught out before whereby I’d queue and get to the counter, only to be told to go out back. I think in general An Post could be more informative about collection points and where to find them.

I’ve never enjoyed post offices, but at least this one was painless. What initially looked like a long line only took a few minutes to filter though, and behind the counter was a lovely gentleman who explained this new mail system to me. For 7 euros my big pile of documents will be delivered by tomorrow. Not bad.
The building is particularly nice for a post office. I might not have thought anything of it, except that I am used to post offices being housed in brutal, prefabricated, industrial eye sores. The bright art décor style makes for a welcome change.

The Post Office in Rathmines is a very grand and majestic art deco building. In fact, Rathmines is absolutely bursting with overly grand and majestic buildings when I come to think about it
… hang on I’m going to check wikipedia …
Well, not much to report really, I can posit one theory though. Rathmines appears to have been a landing zone for country types in Dublin since nineteen-​dickety-​two and is still known, on a par with Parnell Street, as a port of call for immigrants from foreign lands. So maybe this is why these grand, and as Katie-​Ann put it, colonial feeling buildings exist. Not a solid theory really, but it feels like it makes sense to me!
The Post Office is very New York looking, particularly the fancy entrance way, and along with one or two others a great example of Art Deco in Dublin.

This busy post office is to be found in the centre of a bustling Rathmines village. Set in a grand building, the interior features seem colonial. You will have more than enough time to fully grasp the post office’s majestic interior owing to the fact that you’ll be standing in the queue so long that something will have to occupy your mind during this tedious time. Whilst the service, once you actually reach a free cashier desk is helpful and thorough this post office always appears massively understaffed with usually only about four out of a possible ten cashiers open. So despite frequent lengthy queues and finding myself often standing in line for a tiresome length of time the staff do not seem to open more cashiers or put into operation any kind of modification that would result in the queue ultimately shortening. Long queues are customary as this is the only large sized post office within Rathmines, and the only one able to carry out a wide-​ranging spectrum of tasks under the one roof. The cashiers are always ready to lend a hand when you eventually get to them, just be sure to set aside an extra 20mins for the inevitable queue.

The post office in Rathmines is quite big for a village post office. It’s always busy, the queues are long but there are about 10 counters so you never have to wait long. The building itself is really old, and the décor inside the post office hasn’t changed in decades.
An Post are currently offering a really good savings scheme, which appears almost to match SSIA returns. You invest a certain amount of money, leave it in their safe hands (your investment is state guaranteed) for 5 years, and at the end of it you are rewarded with 21% interest. With the state of the banks at the moment, and investment in shares an increasingly risky business, this seems like a really good way to make a bit of cash on your savings.