Dublin Writers Festival
The 2006 Dublin Writers Festival will take place from Wednesday June 14 to Sunday June 18 inclusive, and will feature some 40 Irish and international poets and writers in readings, lectures, panel discussions and public interviews. Some of the many highlights include lectures by John Carey and Ziauddin Sardar, readings by Seamus Heaney, Nancy Huston, Jeanette Winterson and Alex Barclay, a public discussion between Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright, as well as children's events with Kate Thompson and John Boyne, fantasy writers from Wales, Finland, Catalonia and Poland, a book fair, and much more:
Literary Events in Dublin
‘Out to Lunch’ Poetry Readings
Bank of Ireland Arts Centre
Foster Place
Dublin 2
01 – 671 2261
Salmon Poetry – Poetry Reading
Irish Writer’s Center
Aras na Scroibhneoiri
19 Parnell Square North
Dublin 1
01 – 872 1302
The Monster Poetry Night
Monster Truck Art Gallery
St Patrick’s Cathedral
Dublin 8
Poetry Ireland – Poetry Reading
Our Lady’s Hall
Dalkey
County Dublin
P.S. Writer’s Group
St. Andrew’s Resource Center
Pearse Street
Dublin
Dublin Literary Pub Crawl
The Duke Pub
9 Duke Street
Dublin 2
01 – 679 9553
William Carleton Summer School
The William Carleton Summer School has been held in the Clogher Valley each August since 1992. It aims to further the already awakened interest in the life, times and writings of William Carleton; present Carleton as a writer of international significance; foster critical examination of Carleton's work; and present the best of today's writing by Irish writers. Amongst the School's fringe events each year are drama productions, art and crafts exhibitions, musical events and storytelling. Particularly popular are tours of the Carleton country led by Clogher historian Jack Johnston.
Literary Guided Tours in Dublin
Abbey Theatre Backstage Tour
Abbey Theatre
26 Lower Abbey Street
Dublin 1
01 – 878 7222 or Lo-Call 1890 444 100
Booking is essential 01 – 887 2223
Chester Beatty Library Tour
Highlights of the collection – Public Tour
Dublin Castle
Dublin 2
01 – 407 0750
Gaiety Theatre – Tours of the Theatre
South King Street
Dublin 2
Box Office: 01 – 677 1717
Yeats: The Life anf Works of William Butler Yeats
National Library of Ireland
Kildare Street
Dublin 2
01 – 603 0200
Literary Museums in Dublin
Dublin Writer’s Museum
18 Parnell Square
Dublin 1
01 – 872 2077
Featuring displays tracing the written tradition of Ireland from the time of the Book of Kells, and special features include the works of Swift, Wilde, Yeats, Behan, Joyce, O’ Casey, and G.B. Shaw
James Joyce Museum and Center
35 North Great George’s Street
Dublin 1
01 – 878 8547
Houses the famous front door of No 7 Eccles Street
National Print Museum
Ireland’s Printing Heritage
Garrison Chapel
Beggar’s Bush Barracks
Haddington Road
Dublin 4
01 – 660 3770
The Book of Kells – Turning Darkness into Light
Trinity College Dublin Library
Trinity College
Dublin 2
01 – 608 2320
The nenowned 9th century illuminated latin manuscript of the four gospels alongside other related manuscripts such as the book of Armagh, the Book of Durrow, and the Book of Dimma
Dublin Theatre Festival
The Dublin Theatre Festival was founded by Brendan Smith, who also ran the Olympia Theatre and the Brendan Smith Academy of Acting. In the 1950s, the Irish Tourist Board was interested in helping to finance events on what was termed "shoulder months" of the tourist season - May, June, September and October. Brendan successfully sought a grant and the Festival began operating in 1957. The policy was - and remains - to bring the best available international theatre to Dublin and to balance the programme with Irish productions, especially new plays. There was controversy in the very first year when, after some complaints, the Director of Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo at the tiny Pike Theatre was charged with presenting "a lewd entertainment". The run of the play was not interrupted and the judge rightly threw out the case. The 1958 festival was then cancelled due to Seán O'Casey withdrawing permission to stage the world premiere of The Bishop's Bonfire. Since then, the Festival has thrived and is regarded as the oldest established specialist theatre festival in Europe. Unlike Edinburgh, opera, music and dance do not form a major element of the programme. Brendan Smith continued as Director until 1983 when he was succeeded by Lewis Clohessy (1984-89), Tony Ó Dálaigh (1990-99) and Fergus Linehan (2000-04). The current Director is Don Shipley, previously Artistic Director of the World Stage Festival in Toronto, Canada. Many premieres of plays by leading Irish writers such as Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, Hugh Leonard and Frank McGuinness, have been presented by the Festival. Notable recent international productions include Les Danaides from the Avignon Festival with a company of 130, The Coat directed by Peter Brook, The Street of Crocodiles from Theatre de Complicité, Cloud Street from the Australian Company B and two Shakespeare productions by Declan Donnellan - a Russian Twelfth Night and Othello from Cheek by Jowl - in 2004. From the late 1960s, the Arts Council (An Chomhairle Ealaíon) took over the subventing of the Festival, their annual grant amounting to 35% of income. 33% of the Festival’s income comes from box-office and the balance from sponsorship and a vibrant Friends of the Festival scheme.
The legacy of W.B. Yeats
cast your mind on other days
That we in coming days may be
Still the indomitable Irishry
Our nation's literary development has been inexticably bound with the career of W.B. Yeats. From the development of a national theatre, his involvement with Irish politics, and his instigation of procedure to catalogue, translate and distribute all surviving texts in Irish. His influence, above all other writers, remains the most lasting in Irish Literature; allowing the nation to forge a separate modern identity beyond that inherited from abroad
He was an Irish writer above all in his constant reworking of his past work so that it seemed to constantly anticipate his present work with remarkable ease.
Behind all of the lyrical finery, Yeats was fifty before he could have hoped to live off his poetry yet through out his life signed cheques as 'Yours Sincerely, W.B. Yeats'.
he was one of the few whose history is the history of their own itme, who are a part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood without them - T.S. Eliot
"We are one of the great stocks of Europe. We are the people of Burke; we are the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell. We have created most of the modern literature of this country. We have created the best of its political intelligence."
W. B. Yeats, speech in the Irish Senate, June 11, 1925