Historian Michael Barry has produced an excellent piece in The Irish Story about getting around 19th century Dublin by canal, horse drawn cart and eventually electric tram.
Up to the end of the eighteenth century, transport in Dublin was primitive. By the end of the 19th century, however, all that had changed. The city was criss-crossed with electric tramlines and railways took the well to do out do distant suburbs. In short the 1800s, often considered a period of decline for Dublin also saw much of the Irish capital’s infrastructure improve dramatically.
A good read.