Start at McDaid's on Harry Street, the literary mecca of the 1940s–50s where Brendan Behan first found his voice as a storyteller

Drink at The Palace Bar, haunt of Flann O'Brien

Stop at Kehoe's on South Anne Street, the snug bar of the three

Join the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl, running since 1988 — professional actors perform Joyce, Behan, Wilde and Beckett across four historic pubs over two hours twenty

Dublin's writers worked in pubs because the rooms they lived in were cold, and the pubs are still standing. McDaid's on Harry Street was the literary headquarters of the 1940s and 50s, where Brendan Behan found his voice as a talker before he found it as a writer. The Palace Bar was Flann O'Brien's. McDaid's was the base for Kavanagh, Behan and Flann O'Brien between them. The Dublin Literary Pub Crawl has been running since 1988, with professional actors performing Joyce, Behan, Wilde and Kavanagh across four of them over about two hours twenty.

The Literary Pubs: McDaid's, the Palace and Kehoe's

Dublin

Four nights of Dublin as its writers used it: Joyce's Bloomsday route, Beckett's Foxrock and his bridge, Stoker's Clontarf, Wilde's Merrion Square, the pubs in between, then Castletown House in Celbridge.

Literary Dublin: Joyce, Beckett and the Pubs Between

Find Paul Daly's bronze of Phil Lynott on Harry Street, in his stage stance with the bass on his hip

Go into Bruxelles, behind the statue, and ask which of the downstairs bars holds the Phil Lynott memorabilia — they open Thursday to Sunday

Visit the Irish Rock 'n' Roll Museum on Curved Street in Temple Bar and its Thin Lizzy room

Take the DART north to Sutton and find his grave at St Fintan's Cemetery on Carrickbrack Road

See the plaque on his childhood home on Leighlin Road in Crumlin, unveiled in December 2020

Philip Parris Lynott was born in West Bromwich in 1949 and sent at eight to live with his grandparents, Sarah and Frank, in Crumlin. He grew up to front Thin Lizzy, known for his pick-based bass playing and for lyrics full of working-class tales and invented characters. Thin Lizzy had a hit with Whiskey in the Jar in 1972 and The Boys Are Back in Town in 1976, and Lynott died on 4 January 1986, aged 36; he is buried at St Fintan's Cemetery in Sutton. In 2005 a life-size bronze of him by the Dublin sculptor Paul Daly was unveiled on Harry Street, off Grafton Street, with his mother Philomena — who had campaigned for it with the Roisin Dubh Trust — and former band members there.

Phil Lynott: The Black Rose

Browse the Temple Bar food market at the weekend — check the day and the square before you go

Sample artisan food stalls at George's Street Arcade, a Victorian indoor market that opened in 1881 as the South City Markets

Try fish and chips at Leo Burdock on Werburgh Street, Dublin's oldest chipper, serving since 1913

Look for black pudding and other Irish specialities at the food stalls inside George's Street Arcade

George's Street Arcade opened in 1881 as the South City Markets, burned down in 1892 and was rebuilt in the same style two years later — and it is still trading under its red-brick arches with food stalls among the shops. On Saturdays the Temple Bar Food Market fills Meeting House Square with producers. And Leo Burdock on Werburgh Street has been frying since 1913 and is the oldest chipper in the city, with nowhere to sit, which is how it is supposed to be eaten.

Dublin Markets: George's Street Arcade and Leo Burdock

In the Book of Kells exhibition, find the page on show — at least three monks' hands have been identified in the manuscript, and it took the skins of about 185 calves

Stand at the end of the 65-metre Long Room under its barrel vault, its shelves emptied for the Old Library Redevelopment Project apart from the first four bays

Find the Brian Boru Harp, made around 1400 and the model for the harp on Irish coins, passports and the presidential seal

Find Jonathan Swift among the marble busts along the Long Room — he graduated from here in 1686 by special grace, having failed to meet the standard

The Long Room at Trinity College Dublin is 65 metres long under its barrel vault, lined with marble busts and, until recently, 200,000 of the library's oldest books — they have been taken down for the Old Library Redevelopment Project, apart from the first four bays. The Book of Kells, made by Irish monks around 800, is shown open at a two-page spread in the Old Library, and the Brian Boru Harp, made around 1400 and the model for the harp on Irish coins and the presidential seal, is on display there too.

The Long Room: Trinity's Living Library

See the U2: Made in Dublin exhibition at the Little Museum — the fan-curated collection on the second floor, with the Trabant from the Achtung Baby tour, Bono's oversize Gibson Explorer, and early photographs from the Dublin gigs

Find Bonavox Hearing Aids at 9 North Earl Street, the shopfront Guggi took Bono's name from — good voice, and the shop is still trading

Go to the Irish Rock 'n' Roll Museum on Curved Street for the instruments and the Wall of Fame — the dedicated exhibition in Apollo Studio is Thin Lizzy's, not U2's

In September 1976, Larry Mullen Jr pinned a handwritten notice on the board at Mount Temple Comprehensive School looking for musicians. Bono, the Edge, and Adam Clayton showed up to his kitchen. They called themselves Feedback, then the Hype, and took the name U2 in March 1978. Before they sold out Wembley Stadium in 1987, they were playing for 50 pence a head at the Dandelion Market on St Stephen's Green — a flea market in a car park. The Dandelion Market is gone, but three stops in the city centre mark the trail from that kitchen to the world.

U2: Before Wembley

At Clonycavan Man, look at the hair — held up with a gel of plant oil and pine resin from Spain or southern France, which is Iron Age trade you can see

At Old Croghan Man, note what is missing — arms and torso only, and hands with no sign of manual work on a man who ate wheat and buttermilk

Find the other bodies in the same gallery, and read how each was placed in the bog on a boundary between kingdoms

Find the Ralaghan Idol, the Iron Age carved wooden figure from County Cavan, shown alongside the bodies

Find the Tara Brooch, the Ardagh Chalice and the Cross of Cong in the Treasury, and the Bronze Age goldwork in Ór — Ireland's Gold

The National Museum of Ireland on Kildare Street holds the most significant collection of Iron Age bog bodies in the world. Clonycavan Man and Old Croghan Man, both found in 2003, are the most intact. Clonycavan Man — found in Meath — was using a hair gel made from plant oil and pine resin imported from Spain or France, evidence of Iron Age international trade. Both men were killed in elaborate ritual sequences that archaeologists interpret as failed kingship sacrifices.

Kingship and Sacrifice: Ireland's Bog Bodies

In Merrion Square Park, look closely at the Wilde statue — he reclines on a Wicklow quartz boulder, torso of green nephrite jade and pink thulite, legs of Norwegian blue pearl granite, shoes of black Indian charnockite

Walk to 21 Westland Row — a ten-minute walk from Merrion Square — where a plaque marks the house where Wilde was actually born on 16 October 1854; the building is now part of Trinity College Dublin's Oscar Wilde Centre

At Marsh's Library on St Patrick's Close, look into the three wire reading cages, in use since the 1770s to stop readers walking off with the books

Go inside St Patrick's Cathedral and find Swift's grave slab and the Latin epitaph he wrote for himself — W. B. Yeats put it into English and called it the greatest epitaph in history

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854 and grew up at 1 Merrion Square — the square's park now holds his reclining statue, built out of coloured stones from three continents. Two streets away, Marsh's Library has stood since 1707 as Ireland's oldest public library, with three wire reading cages in use since the 1770s to stop readers pocketing the books; Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Patrick's next door, was a reader here in its early years.

Oscar Wilde, Marsh's Library and Dublin's Literary Monuments

Take a boat out onto Lough Gill and find Innisfree, the tiny uninhabited island that gave Yeats' 1888 poem its title

Note the local claim that Church Island, not Innisfree itself, better matches the poem's description — Innisfree is really too small to live on

Explore the Yeats exhibition at Sligo County Museum

Walk Sligo town's streets that Yeats knew as a boy, now home to the Yeats Building and Society

Yeats wrote The Lake Isle of Innisfree in 1888 while homesick in London, and the island is really out there on Lough Gill — though locals will tell you Church Island fits the poem better, because Innisfree itself is far too small to build a cabin on. That argument is part of the pleasure of taking a boat out. Sligo town, where he spent his boyhood summers, now holds the Yeats Building and the Yeats Society, and the county museum keeps the exhibition devoted to him.

Yeats Country: Innisfree and Lough Gill

Find Cooldrinagh on Kerrymount Avenue, Foxrock — the house Beckett's family built in 1903, where he was born in the main bedroom in 1906

Tour Trinity College Dublin, where Beckett studied French and Italian before becoming a lecturer there himself

Cross the Samuel Beckett Bridge, Santiago Calatrava's harp-shaped structure over the Liffey, opened in 2009

Note that Beckett's plays are still regularly staged around Dublin — check the Gate and Abbey Theatre listings for what's on

Samuel Beckett was born in 1906 in the main bedroom of Cooldrinagh, the house his family built on Kerrymount Avenue in Foxrock three years earlier, and it is still a private house on a suburban road. He read French and Italian at Trinity and came back to lecture there before leaving for Paris and writing the work that took theatre apart. The bridge named after him is Santiago Calatrava's, opened in 2009 and shaped like a harp laid on its side across the Liffey.