Irish Literature — The Island of Poets

Ireland has four Nobel Prize winners for literature: W.B. Yeats (1923), George Bernard Shaw (1925), Samuel Beckett (1969), and Seamus Heaney (1995). Alongside giants like James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker (Dracula!), and today Sally Rooney, Colm Tóibín, Sebastian Barry.

James Joyce and his Ulysses made Dublin a literary world heritage site. The novel takes place on a single day (June 16, 1904, "Bloomsday") in Dublin. On Bloomsday, Dubliners dress in Edwardian costumes and pilgrimage to the locations.

Oscar Wilde — born at 1 Merrion Square, whose colorful statue lies at the corner today — brought Irish wit to world literature. The Dublin Literary Pub Crawl (€16) combines literature and pints: Actors guide through the pubs where Joyce, Behan, and Flann O'Brien drank and wrote.