City of literature - Writers honoured

RECOGNITION for an individual’s achievements is always welcome.

This recognition is especially welcome if it honours people who may not always have enjoyed the unambiguous support of their contemporaries.

Joyce, Beckett, Wilde and Shaw have irrefutable links with our capital but each left Ireland almost as soon as they were in a position to do so. There were many reasons for this flight but the stifling cultural, social and political atmosphere in the Ireland of their times played a significant part in their decisions to emigrate.

Yesterday’s announcement that Dublin has been named the world’s fourth Unesco City of Literature is as good a time as any to ask if those great writers were alive would they be happy to live and work in Ireland?