A Busman's Holiday

My trip to Ireland

I just got back from a delightful trip to Ireland. Given the importance of literature to the Irish and the number of literature-related activities I undertook, and the fact that I’m working on a new book, I wonder if this qualified as a “busman’s holiday?”

I did a lot of touristy things that weren’t about books (listening to traditional music, visiting historic sites, a boat trip to the Aran Islands, a visit to the Cliffs of Moher, etc.), but here are some literary highlights:

On my first day in Dublin, I took a walking tour of the central city. As it turned out, my guide was a playwright, so he made sure to point out some important sites, such as the birthplace of Jonathan Swift, the Marsh Library, which houses an important collection of incredibly old books, and various locations that James Joyce mentions in Ulysses as being stops for Leopold Bloom on his “odyssey” around Dublin.

Non-literary on its surface, I took an Irish Food Tour in order to be sure that I sampled typical items on an Irish menu. While Irish cuisine won’t be one of my favorites, the guide who took us to three restaurants (one for each course) was yet another playwright. This one also happened to be an actor who appeared in The Ferryman by Jez Butterworth in London’s West End, a terrific play that I saw on Broadway a few years ago.

I also joined a Literary Pub Crawl one evening. This was led by an actor and a singer who had plenty of stories and songs about Irish writers, punctuated by recitations from some of the great works by Joyce, Wilde, Yeats, and others. Beginning on Duke Street, continuing to Trinity College, on to a couple of pubs with literary connections, and then back to Davy Byrnes on Duke Street, another of Leopold Bloom’s stops. Duke Street is also home to the Ulysses Bookstore, a great shop for collectible editions of books by Irish writers. (I was tempted to buy something there but managed to resist.)

The next day I went to the Museum of Literature, which was right around the corner from where I was staying. A small museum, it contained displays about all the major Irish writers and some I was less familiar with. It also had a gift shop with lots of books and items with a literary theme. I think the museum would be a great place to linger and attempt to really absorb its contents, but there’s a lot to take in all at once. It also had a nice looking café, which must be a great place to hang out.

I went to three libraries in Dublin. The first was the Trinity College library, which houses the Book of Kells, a 1200-year-old illuminated book containing the four gospels in Latin created by monks who fled to Ireland to escape the Viking invaders of Britain. The library also has a massive collection of ancient books in a gorgeous reading room, although most of the books have been removed for cleaning and restoration. In fact, the entire building will soon close for renovation. The second library was Marsh’s Library attached to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It also has an amazing collection of books, many from the late 15^th Century. Some of the books are in little caged rooms. The cages were protection against theft, but I also heard a story that some of Ireland’s famous writers had themselves locked into those rooms in order to focus on their work! Finally, I went to the National Library. While its rooms aren’t generally open to the public, they do have an exhibition space in the basement which currently has a great display about the poet William Butler Yeats, complete with audio of his poems being read aloud.

In addition to Dublin, I also spent a couple of days in Galway on Ireland’s West Coast. It has a very different vibe, and I enjoyed walking its labyrinth of streets. On one such walk, I discovered Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, a great bookstore in which I could have spent hours. The last thing I needed was more books in my luggage, but they had such a fantastic selection that I couldn’t help myself, especially when I discovered the table of hardcover remainders. (One of the books I bought was a collection of stories by Kevin Barry, a contemporary Irish writer I’ve been wanting to read.) I paid for my books and then saw a poster about an event happening that night in the store featuring the American historian Kevin Boyle, who is not only the chair of the History Department at my alma mater, Northwestern University, but also a winner of the National Book Award for his book Arc of Justice. Naturally, I had to come back for that, and I’m very glad I did (even though it cut short my enjoyment of a traditional Irish music session in a local pub). Boyle spoke mostly about the rise of MAGA in the US, which the Irish were quite interested in, but there were also a few of us Americans in the audience. I had worn my Northwestern hat to the store, so we talked about NU for a bit, and of course I felt compelled to buy his most recent book, The Shattering: America in the 1960s.

Finally, on the train back to Dublin I chatted with a nice Irish gentleman who recommended a play that was still running at the Gate Theatre, Dancing at Lughnasa by the late Brian Friel. I looked up the theater on my phone, saw that a good seat was available for €50, and booked it for that very night. It’s not a new play, but it’s set in rural Ireland in the ‘30s and, a bit like The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, manages to illustrate the depths of hardship during a bleak period. The production was excellent. I confess that I didn’t recognize the name of the playwright, but I’ve since learned that he was very well known in Ireland.

It's no surprise that so much of my trip had something to do with books and literature. Before I left home, I had already read three short novels by Claire Keegan. On the plane I read Roddy Doyle’s first novel, The Commitments, and while I was in the country I re-read Dubliners by James Joyce. Now I’m keen to read Kevin Barry and some other contemporary writers who have recently received attention, and maybe even tackle a re-read of Ulysses.