Dublin's Pubs & Writers - a perfect match
Enjoy some of Ireland's best literature acted out as you travel from one famous Dublin pub to another.
No city is as rich in pubs and poetry as Dublin, and Dublin’s literary pub crawl is a genius amalgam of both - a 2½ hour walking tour with Wilde, Joyce, Behan and Beckett. This is an award-winning show that crawls from pub to pub with professional actors performing the works of Dublin's most famous writers - Joyce, Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Brendan Behan and many more.
In the style of Leoopold Bloom, the literary pub crawl meanders through the streets of Dublin, taking in the sights, the smells, the sounds and the scenes. A team of rambling players and minstrels completes the ensemble, giving renditions of verse, prose, drama and song from the literary hall of fame. You'll find the wit and humor is as potent as the drink itself.
Join this fun-filled evening and follow in the footsteps of Joyce, Shaw, O'Casey, Behan, Kavanagh, Beckett, Wilde Stephens, Gogarty and other literary greats. As you discover some of Dublin's finest pubs and sample the finest Irish Whiskey, you may even absorb some of their genuis.
Departs every night at 7:30pm (April - October)
Departs every Thursday - Sunday night at 7:30pm (November - March)
"It combines street theatre with the 'craic' that makes Dublin's pubs the liveliest in Europe and successfully avoids tourist cliches that could ruin an evening of high art and low life". The London Times
Dublin pubs are known the world over
as shrines to the art of conversation. The drink is almost incidental, something to oil the throat and sharpen the wit. This may help to explain the pantheon of writers who have passed through the doors of Dublin pubs, making her the only city in the world to produce three Nobel Prize-winning writers - Beckett, Shaw and Yeats.
At one time Dublin had over 3000 pubs where locals could indulge in their favourite tipple. Pubs were places where ordinary 'Dubs' could gather away from the tenements, the screaming children and dire poverty. The pub provided warmth and atmosphere for men to drink cheaply and forget the hunger in their bellies. As time passed laws were enacted to control the number of pubs in the city. Today, Dublin has about 850 licenced premises, each with its own style and particular clientele. Most famous is the 'literary pub'.
Because of the Censorship Act of 1927 many Irish writers could not get their work into print. To get published they had to leave this 'Island behind an island' or what Joyce called: 'this afterthought of Europe'. Bending the knee to mother church and suckling state was not for them. Those who stayed, however, went to pubs like the Palace, McDaid's, Mulligan's and the Bailey to meet the journalists and literary editors of the Irish Times and the Irish Press.
The scene was small and gossipy, poisonous and paralyzed. Beckett referred to the 'indiscretion and broken glass' in Dublin's pubs. Writers fell out often and moved to other bars to lick wounds and nurse grievances. Pub crawling was a way of life for them. So the idea came about to follow in the footsteps of Joyce, Behan, Flann O'Brien and Patrick Kavanagh. A team of actors leads each group on a trail from bar to bar; no props, no lights, no make-up, just the voice and personality of the actor within prompting distance of the audience.
