A library crawl through Dublin is a wonderfully relaxing way to explore the city’s rich literary history.
Dublin is the perfect destination for booklovers, or indeed anyone who loves a good story and a well-turned phrase. This UNESCO City of Literature, which produced four Nobel laureates (Shaw, Yeats, Beckett and Heaney) and the towering figures of James Joyce and Oscar Wilde, is a place of great literary legacy where a love of language and literature is sewn into the fabric of life.
It’s not surprising that Dublin has some excellent libraries, havens of peace and repositories of great and lesser-known works that are all food for the soul. On a stroll through the city, you can easily visit several of its famous historical libraries – places once frequented by its great writers and ideal spots to linger and connect with the cultural heart of the city.
Considered to be one of the most beautiful libraries in the world and home to the Book of Kells, the Long Room at Trinity College will transport you back in time and awe you with its quiet grandeur. The 65-metre (213-foot) gallery has a soaring, barrel-vaulted ceiling and has been likened to a cathedral of books. It demands you take time to breathe in its history and reflect on the many souls that have passed through its doors and studied its centuries-old books. Currently most of the books have been removed as part of a major preservation project but the library’s unique ambiance remains.
Marsh’s Library beside St Patrick’s Cathedral is Dublin’s first public library dating to 1707 and is a serene place to spend a few hours. Filled with historic tomes and currently displaying some of the oldest printed books in the world in the Gutenberg’s Cradle exhibition, it is a place where many of Dublin’s great writers came to read and study including Jonathan Swift, James Joyce and Bram Stoker. Due to the eighteenth-century readers’ tendency to steal the library books, Marsh’s built reading cages in which readers were locked during their visit. You can still sit in a cage during your visit and imagine yourself in bygone days. The city’s history is literally written in Marsh’s stones as it came under attack during the 1916 Easter Rising and its walls and some of its books have bullet holes.
The imposing National Library of Ireland is worth a visit as much for its architecture as its collections. Its magnificent domed reading room, marble stairways and stained-glass windows honouring literary and artistic greats create a breathtaking space. Housing more than 12 million items from books and photographs to music and maps, the library preserves the nation’s cultural heritage. Among its current exhibitions are The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats and Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again. Guided tours are also available on specific dates.
At the Chester Beatty in the grounds of Dublin Castle, you have the chance to delve into a remarkable collection of global cultural and religious texts from Asia, Europe and North Africa. The library’s fascinating exhibitions include sacred texts, illuminated manuscripts and miniature paintings from the world’s great religions while its permanent Arts of the Book exhibition has items that are thousands of years old. The Silk Road Café at the library is a popular eaterie. Located in a charming atrium with outdoor seating overlooking the garden, it’s the perfect place to refuel on your library crawl.
If you want to throw a modern library into the mix on your day of bookish wanderings, head to The Library Project in the heart of Dublin’s Temple Bar cultural quarter. It’s at once a bookshop, library and gallery and also a cultural hub with a strong focus on photography that invites people to discover local and international contemporary and indie visual art practices.
In Ireland, stories are not always bound up in books and the art of oral storytelling is alive and well. A great way to experience this is at a Seanoíche (pronounced shan-a-key-ha) storytelling event. It’s a modern version of traditional storytelling celebrating the spoken word, personal narrative, and communal intimacy. Held monthly in cozy venues across Dublin, Seanchoíche brings together a diverse lineup of storytellers (some professional, many not) who share true stories on a given theme. It’s raw, honest, funny, and moving and a beautiful counterpart to the hushed and contemplative library experience.
