“Now, have I got a story for you…” is a greeting as common as “hello” in Dublin, one of the world’s greatest cities of literature, where lyrical storytelling is as important a tradition today as it was when Bram Stoker put pen to paper to write Dracula or W.B. Yeats his Nobel Prize–winning poetry. The city’s heart is Trinity College, where Stoker, Yeats, and Oscar Wilde studied, and contemporary author Sally Rooney’s troubled youngsters (from her best-selling novel Normal People) spring easily to life. The highlight of a visit here is the 213-foot Long Room in the Old Library, which holds 200,000 books (although under long-term restoration, it remains impressive) and is lined with marble busts of literary greats including Dublin native Jonathan Swift, one of Ireland’s most influential writers. Not to be missed either is the new Book of Kells Experience, home to a manuscript created by monks in 800CE. Despite its long-ago origins, the text and illustrations look freshly inked, and the accompanying exhibition is magical and brings the script alive.
Shelved Treasures
Marsh’s is Ireland’s oldest library, rammed with floor-to-ceiling oak bookshelves that are over 300 years old, and an unusual row of study cages. Each has one solitary desk and chair that were used by scholars poring over rare, valuable manuscripts considered too precious not to be under lock and key.
The Museum of Literature Ireland is found on St. Stephen’s Green in what was once a private Georgian mansion. The prize of its collection are Joyce’s letters and notebooks, but many other Irish writers are celebrated, from Booker Prize–winner Anne Enright to national treasure Edna O’Brien, and Nobel Prize–winning poet and playwright Seamus Heaney, who lived in Dublin for 40 years. To understand the past struggles of Irish writers for free cultural expression, you only need to read “The Blacklist” drawn up by the Committee of Evil Literature in 1926, which includes titles such as The Sporting Times and Women’s Weekly in its long list of corruptible matter.
In a city that brims with bookshops, Ulysses Rare Books is one of the most interesting, and where, if you ask nicely, they’ll give you a look at a limited edition, such as Joyce’s Ulysses illustrated by Henri Matisse, signed by both author and artist … and selling for a cool €25,000 Euros ($27,045). The story goes that the men fell out after Joyce discovered Matisse hadn’t bothered to read his weighty tome. For a more pocket-friendly selection of Ireland-centric books, head to nearby shops Hodges Figgis or Winding Stair, Dublin’s oldest independent bookstore, on the north side of the River Liffey. Also on this side of the water is The James Joyce Centre, to which Joycean enthusiasts flock to see the door of famous No. 7 Eccles Street where Leopold and Molly Bloom.…
By Kate Wickers
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