The Islands of Ireland: All along the watchtower

The Dublin suburb of Dalkey is immortalised in the surrealist work of one of Ireland’s greatest writers, Flann O’Brien.

Myles na Gopaleen, or Brian O’Nolan as he was also known, wrote The Dalkey Archive, which had the unforgettable character of the policeman whose atoms blended with his bicycle. O’Brien’s earlier novel, The Third Policeman, had the same character.

He described the little town as it was in 1964 as a “vestibule of heavenly conspection”. With its Italianate mansions and street names and its elegant water-front villas, it resembles nothing as much as a Mediterranean town resting on the coast by the dazzling sea.