Literary Dublin

Literary Dublin

Now, when a Dubliner asks you ‘What’s the story?’, they’re not expecting you to take them home, tuck them in and read them a bedtime tale. Dubliners’ lives are so laced with literature that they see everything as a story, and expect that everyone has one. The Dublin Literary Pub Crawl demonstrates this eloquently in verse and monologues on a journey of the pubs and places Dublin’s literary luminaries left their mark on. Then again, you could always put the city’s iWalk series in your ears, tramp the streets and let Dublin’s story unfold itself along the way. But be warned: we’re still telling tales. A tall-tale dinner at the Brazen Head, the Milk and Cookie Storytelling sessions or the Joyce readings at real-life Ulysses relic Sweny’s are testament to that. So what should you reply when asked ‘What’s the story?’ Trust us, the city will have one waiting for you.

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Statue shenanigans

While some poets and authors have achieved rock star status, it’s still not considered cool to have your picture taken with your arm around them and giving the peace sign. Should you happen to be rather enamoured with certain Dublin authors, however, we might have a compromise. Raglan Road one of your favourite poems? Take a seat beside the bronze Patrick Kavanagh and join him gazing out at the canal. Did The Importance of Being Earnest leave you in stiches? Tip your hat in thanks to Oscar Wilde as you pass him in Merrion Square. And maybe Ulysses was the literary odyssey you simply couldn’t get enough of? Pass on your congratulations to James Joyce on North Earl Street. But just so you know, they might not answer back.

Dublin - The Drama Queen

Trinity College is known for housing minds so bright they could power the national grid. It was the same back in the day when Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett and John Millington Synge ploughed their respective academic furrows here. Trinity’s Samuel Beckett Theatre is a nod to that literary legacy and is bang on the button with theatre’s new happenings. From the iconic (W.B. Yeats’ renowned Abbey Theatre) to the intimate (the cute-as-can-be Focus Theatre) the city makes for a queen of the drama scene, with the New York Times dubbing it ‘Off, Off, Off Broadway’. If you want the whole song and dance, time your entry stage right with one of our drama festivals: the fan-tabulous Fringe or the venerable Dublin Theatre Festival.

Liquid literature

It’s no secret that Dublin’s wordsmiths fancied a pint. Or two. In their selfless search for the meaning of life, they would perch themselves on the finest stools in Dublin’s finest watering holes and philosophize. And when we swan in the doors of pubs like Neary’s or snag the snug in the rugged charm of Toners (apparently the only pub in Dublin where W.B Yeats took a drink) we begin to understand. Joyce couldn’t write a book in Dublin without including a pub (take a bow Davy Byrne’s and whether it’s rumour or not we like the idea of Gulliver’s Travels author (also Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral) Jonathan Swift sipping a wee dram in the Brazen Head. Possibly, though, the mother of all Dublin’s literary drinking dens is the Palace Bar on Fleet Street. Step inside and breathe the air that once nourished the comic genius of Flann O’Brien, the devil-may-care charm of Brendan Behan and the poetic perfection of Paddy Kavanagh. Sure, it’s enough to fill a novel.

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