The literary trails in Ireland lead just about everywhere

Scott Stinson, National Post 



We were on a mission, my wife and I. Her grandparents had for years lived in the west of Ireland, and our route through the country happened to take us to the tiny village of Cong, which my father-in-law said was near the house. We had no directions to the home, though, just a name and a photo.

Sue went in to the tourist office in town and explained the predicament: We were visiting from Canada and were looking for this house that her grandparents once owned. It's called Moytura House.

The woman behind the counter was unfazed. "Oh, you mean Oscar Wilde's old house."

"No," Sue replied. "I mean the house my grandparents once lived in."

"And Oscar Wilde," she said, looking at the photo. "That's it."

So it was that we learned that my in-laws once lived in Oscar Wilde's summer retreat. (Weirder still, we found the place was recently owned by The Edge of U2. His ex-wife has it now, although I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that Liam Neeson had picked it up for a spell.)

Discovering a personal Wilde connection, while unexpected, seems entirely fitting while visiting Ireland, a country with literary roots so deep it feels like you can't swing a cat without hitting a famous author's birthplace, or haunting ground, or muse. The Irish are proud of the connection, too, and quick to note that four of their countrymen have won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Dublin is not the only place with strong literary connections, but it's a good place to start.


In the beautiful park that sits next to St. Patrick's Cathedral lies the writers' walk, a series of plaques that pay tribute to some of Ireland's greatest authors: George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift and on and on. A stroll along here is like peering at the starting lineup of the Irish Author All-Stars, and gives a good indication of this small country's big contribution to the art of letters (stpatrickscathedral.ie). A short walk to the east is Merrion Square Park, home to a statue of Wilde (he was born across the street) and etchings of some of his great lines. "I can resist everything except temptation," for example.


The truly dedicated can take walking tours of the city that follow in the route that Leopold Bloom, protagonist of Joyce's Ulysses, famously took on June 16, 1904. The Martello Tower at Sandycove, starting point for Bloom's journey, now a Joyce museum (visitdublin.com), is about 10 kilometres south of the city centre. There are celebrations throughout the city each year on June 16 -- Bloomsday-- that are largely co-ordinated by the James Joyce Centre on North Great George's Street (jamesjoyce.ie). The centre includes exhibits worth seeing on other days of the year, too. Dublin Tourism also offers a podcast (visitdublin.com/iwalks) that allows users to do their own Bloomsian walking tour of the city, including places like Davy Byrne's pub where he had lunch, and St. Andrew's Church, where he savoured "the cold smell of sacred stone."


The Dublin Writer's Museum on Parnell Square (writersmuseum.com),which resides in a house in the city's charming Georgian district that once belonged to the Jamesons of Jameson's whiskey fame, has modest displays and an assortment of original works from some iconic authors, but the audio tours also delve into some of the political writings that factored into Ireland's turbulent past, from the rebellion of the United Irishmen to the Easter Rising to the granting of Home Rule.


The library of Trinity College Dublin on College Green (tcd.ie/library) is home to the Book of Kells, an ancient rendering of the first four gospels by some very patient monks. The level of detail in the lettering and illustrations is remarkable. Visitors here can learn about the process of creating the illuminated manuscript, and see explanations of some of the intricate drawings. Fitting for a book with such religious connections, there is a hushed reverence about the place. Almost as interesting is the library's Long Room, a cavernous space with stacks and stacks of vintage texts. The library remains in use for students, but is hands-off to the public.


Dublin has more than 700 pubs, and almost every one of them claims a connection to some writer or another. But the best way to delve into two of Ireland's most famous exports -- words and Guinness -- is on the Literary Pub Crawl (dublinpubcrawl.com) that begins at Duke's tavern. Tours include stops in four pubs (it rotates among 10 in total) and a pair of guides/actors explain the literary connections and perform scenes from Irish works. Outside Davy Byrne's, for example, we hear from a book by Brendan Behan, who was famously sozzled enough that he may well be connected to most of the 700 pubs. Behan, we later learn, visited Ontario in 1963. Asked what he thought of Canada, he replied: "It'll be nice when it's finished." The cost is reasonable. Pints extra.


OK, this isn't really a literary stop but it is the most popular attraction in Dublin (guinness-storehouse.com). And the glass-enclosed bar on the 7th floor that offers a 360-degree view of the city does have quotes from famous Irish writers on its many windows. So you can justify a visit there in a pinch.


Seamus Heaney is unique among the four Irish Nobel winners in that he is alive. Now 70 and living in Dublin, he was awarded the Nobel in 1995 for his poetry. And in the same way that W. B. Yeats is connected to the land around Sligo where he spent many of his younger days, Heaney drew much of his inspiration from the farmland and hills in the Magherafelt region of Northern Ireland that he knew as a child. Bellaghy Bawn, a fortified home in the small town of Bellaghy with ties to the Ulster Plantations of the early 17th-century, has been turned into a museum partly dedicated to the history of the area and partly to its famous son. The Seamus Heaney Library occupies the upstairs of the former home. It includes exhibits about his work, such as the original version of In Bellaghy's Graveyard, scrawled on foolscap, which Heaney wrote to mark the opening of the refurbished Bawn, which is operated by the government as a historic site (ni-environment.gov.uk). It doesn't boast a roster of icons to rival Dublin, but Belfast has some literary stars of its own. C.S. Lewis was born here, and the house known as Little Lea on Circular Road, where the family lived from 1905 to 1930, is thought to be the inspiration for Professor Kirke's home in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The guidebooks note, however, that Little Lea is a private residence, so do not expect a tour. Belfast also has a literary pub, The John Hewitt (thejohnhewitt.com), that compares well to any in Dublin. Cave Hill, the mountain that rises above the city, looks like a sleeping giant in profile and is said to have inspired the characters in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.


William Butler Yeats lived for years both in Dublin and abroad, but it is the northwest county of Sligo that is most associated with his work. The Yeats Society (yeats-sligo.com)has its headquarters on Hyde Bridge in the centre of the coastal town of Sligo, where you can pick up instructions for the self-guided Yeats Trail, a series of loops that include stops relevant to the man's life and work. Sites include the beaches and race tracks of Rosses Point, the hills and waterfalls of Glencar Valley and the modest gravesite of W. B. Yeats, at Drumcliffe Cemetery, eight kilometres north of Sligo in the shadow of the imposing flat-top mountain Ben Bulben. Those looking to walk off an Irish breakfast can take a 45-minute hike up Knocknarea Mountain (sligotown.net),about five kilometres west of Sligo. From the summit, Yeats country unfolds below, offering a panoramic view of this part of the isle of saints and scholars.