City of Joyce – A Portrait of Dublin City as a Book Lover’s Nirvana

Birthplace of James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, and Samuel Beckett, Dublin has more literary landmarks than most cities. Some serve double-duty: The Duke is an 1822 bar and the starting point for the Literary Pub Crawl (www.dublinpubcrawl.com), a walking tour of historic, author friendly pubs. In 2010, UNESCO named Dublin to its list of Cities of Literature—of which contemporary author Joseph O’Connor commented, “To describe Dublin as a City of Literature would be like saying rain sometimes falls in Ireland.”

DUBLIN WRITERS MUSEUM

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Letters, rare editions, portraits, and other memorabilia from the likes of Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, Shaw, Yeats, Joyce, and Beckett fill this 18th-century mansion. The Michelin-starred restaurant Chapter One occupies its basement level. (writersmuseum.com)

JAMES JOYCE CENTRE

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Far from a stuffy memorial to the literary cult figure, the centre hosts weekly Joyce-themed walks, spearheads the annual Bloomsday festival, and welcomes guest readers as starry as Stephen Fry. (jamesjoyce.ie)

TRINITY COLLEGE

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Take a student-guided walking tour around this prestigious 16th-century university, home to the largest library in Ireland and the illuminated ninth-century Gospel manuscript, the Book of Kells. (tcd.ie/ visitors/book-of-kells)

SWENY’S PHARMACY

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Daily Joyce readings take place at this former pharmacy where Ulysses’ Leopold Bloom famously buys lemon-scented soap. (sweny.ie)

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF IRELAND

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Its holdings include the largest collection of W. B. Yeats manuscripts in the world, donated by the Yeats family. (www.nli.ie)

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