Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Old Literary Dublin
Modern Irish literature begins with Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), the master satirist, social
commentator and dean of St Patrick's Cathedral. He was the greatest Dublin writer of the
early Georgian period and is most famous for
Gulliver's Travels,
a savage social satire that
has morphed into a children's favourite. He was an 'earnest and dedicated champion of
liberty', as he insisted on writing in his own epitaph.
He was followed by Oliver Goldsmith (1730-74), author of
The Vicar of Wakefield,
and
Thomas Moore (1779-1852), whose poems formed the repertoire of generations of Irish
tenors. Dublin-born Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is renowned for his legendary wit, immense
talent and striking sensitivity. Bram Stoker (1847-1912) created the most famous Gothic
ghouls of them all, and his novel
Dracula
remains one of the world's most popular books.
The name of the count may have come from the Irish
droch fhola
(bad blood).
Playwright and essayist George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950),
author of
Pygmalion
(which was later turned into
My Fair Lady
),
hailed from Synge St near the Grand Canal, while James Joyce
(1882-1941), the city's most famous son and one of the greatest
writers of all time, was born not far away in Rathgar.
William Butler (WB) Yeats (1865-1939) is best remembered
as a poet, though he also wrote plays and spearheaded the
late-19th-century Irish Literary Revival, which culminated in the
founding of the Abbey Theatre in 1904.
Sailing to Byzantium
and
Easter 1916
are two of his finest poems - the latter, about the
Easter Rising, ends with the famous line 'A terrible beauty is born'. His poetry is mostly
tied up with his sense of Irish heroism, esoteric mysticism and the unrequited love he had
for Maud Gonne.
Oliver St John Gogarty (1878-1957) is said to have borne a lifelong grudge against his
one-time friend James Joyce because of his appearance as Buck Mulligan in the latter's
Ulysses.
He was a character in his own right and his views are presented in his memoirs
As
I Was Going Down Sackville Street
(1937). He had a mean streak though, and took excep-
tion to a throwaway remark written by Patrick Kavanagh (1904-67) alluding to him having
a mistress; he successfully sued the poet, whom he described as 'that Monaghan boy'.
Kavanagh, from farming stock in Monaghan, walked to Dublin (a very long way) in
1934 and made the capital his home. His later poetry explored Ireland's city-versus-country
Dublin's
Nobel
Laureates
William Butler Yeats (1923)
George Bernard Shaw (1925)
Samuel Beckett (1969)
Seamus Heaney (1995)
