Avandra Field Guide · Leinster, Ireland
Literary Dublin: Joyce, Beckett and the Pubs Between
4
nights
97
km driving
6
challenges
1,750
XP to earn
4
nights
97
km driving
6
challenges
1,750
XP to earn
Dublin is small enough that its writers kept using the same streets. Trinity College takes in Bram Stoker, enrolled in 1864, Samuel Beckett, who read French and Italian there and came back to lecture, and the Oscar Wilde Centre at 21 Westland Row, where Wilde was born on 16 October 1854. Marsh's Library, open since 1707, belongs to Stoker's story and to Wilde's. Duke Street holds Davy Byrne's, where Leopold Bloom ate his gorgonzola sandwich in Episode 8 of Ulysses; Harry Street holds McDaid's, where Brendan Behan talked before he wrote. Over four nights the route runs from Sandycove and the Martello Tower out to Foxrock and Glasnevin Cemetery, then across Merrion Square, the Samuel Beckett Bridge and the pubs in between, before finishing at Castletown, the Palladian house William Conolly built in 1722.
Starts and finishes at the ferry in Dublin
Best from April to October
97 km of driving in total, about 2 hours over 4 days
Beckett's Dublin: Cooldrinagh, Trinity and the Bridge
Edited by Avandra
Days 1–3 · 3 nights
Dublin
39 km · 54 min from Dublin
Base camp · 3 nights
Camac Valley Tourist Caravan and Camping Park
4.1
1,367 Google reviews
Editor's note
Camac Valley Tourist Caravan and Camping Park sits at Corkagh on the Green Isle Road, three nights and 11.5 km out from the city; the Slievethoul Lugg Walk starts nearby. Ulysses can be walked in a day: the Martello Tower at Sandycove, now the James Joyce Museum, holds Joyce's guitar, cigar case and death mask, and Sweny's Pharmacy at 1 Lincoln Place still sells the lemon soap Bloom buys in Episode 5. Stoker was born at 15 Marino Crescent in Clontarf on 8 November 1847; Beckett in the main bedroom of Cooldrinagh in Foxrock in 1906, still a private house. Wilde's statue reclines in Merrion Square Park, and Calatrava's harp-shaped Samuel Beckett Bridge crosses the Liffey. The evenings belong to McDaid's, the Palace Bar and Kehoe's.
Joyce's Dublin: The Bloomsday Walk
400 XPStart at the Martello Tower in Sandycove, where Ulysses opens with Stephen Dedalus and Buck Mulligan — now the James Joyce Museum, holding his guitar, cigar case and death mask
11.5 km from camp
About 4 h
Bram Stoker's Dublin: Marino Crescent to Marsh's Library
350 XPFind 15 Marino Crescent in Clontarf, where Stoker was born on 8 November 1847
14.7 km from camp
About 4 h
Beckett's Dublin: Cooldrinagh, Trinity and the Bridge
250 XPFind Cooldrinagh on Kerrymount Avenue, Foxrock — the house Beckett's family built in 1903, where he was born in the main bedroom in 1906
16.6 km from camp
About 2.5 h
The Literary Pubs: McDaid's, the Palace and Kehoe's
300 XPStart at McDaid's on Harry Street, the literary mecca of the 1940s–50s where Brendan Behan first found his voice as a storyteller
11.1 km from camp
About 3 h
Oscar Wilde, Marsh's Library and Dublin's Literary Monuments
225 XPIn 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
11.6 km from camp
About 2.5 h
Walks from camp
Day 4 · 1 night
Celbridge and Castletown
34 km · 47 min from Dublin
Base camp · 1 night
MeathEcoPark
4.4
1,305 Google reviews
Editor's note
MeathEcoPark lies at Rathbeggan in Co. Meath, a single night and 13.3 km from the house. Castletown was built in 1722 by William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and reputedly the richest man in Ireland, and it remains the first and largest Palladian house in the country. Conolly died in 1729; his widow Katherine went on entertaining there until her own death in 1752. The Long Gallery runs 80 feet and was done in the Pompeian manner in the 1770s, in blue, red and gold. The print room and the Lafranchini plasterwork on the staircase repay a slow tour, and the parkland runs down to the Liffey, with the Conolly Folly on the axis from the house.
Finish the guide, earn 1,750 XP
6 challenges across 2 stops.
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