thu 28/03/2024

theartsdesk in Dublin: UNESCO City of Literature and Treasury of Art | reviews, news & interviews

theartsdesk in Dublin: UNESCO City of Literature and Treasury of Art

theartsdesk in Dublin: UNESCO City of Literature and Treasury of Art

Theatre, politics, whiskey and glorious bridges named after writers

Calatrava's Samuel Beckett Bridge: 'Like a gigantic, elegant Irish harp lolling on its side, the arcing strings catching the Atlantic breeze'Salim Darwiche/WikiMedia Commons

The Celtic Tiger ran rampant through Ireland during the boom years of 1995-2007 when national institutions expanded their collections, galleries popped up and collectors, buyers and artists had a rare time. With literature, the new young Chick Lit writers made their mark, sometimes even outselling the serious contemporaries, and Seamus Heaney rightly got a Nobel Prize. With the crash, prices in Dublin’s major art auction houses fell by 50 per cent as the blinged-up property developers froze; if they did buy, they shifted from contemporary to reassuringly Irish "genre paintings" of peasants in rural landscapes and thatched cottages by the sea.

The Celtic Tiger ran rampant through Ireland during the boom years of 1995-2007 when national institutions expanded their collections, galleries popped up and collectors, buyers and artists had a rare time. With literature, the new young Chick Lit writers made their mark, sometimes even outselling the serious contemporaries, and Seamus Heaney rightly got a Nobel Prize. With the crash, prices in Dublin’s major art auction houses fell by 50 per cent as the blinged-up property developers froze; if they did buy, they shifted from contemporary to reassuringly Irish "genre paintings" of peasants in rural landscapes and thatched cottages by the sea.

In her annual One City, One Book project, the whole city reads the same book on the same day

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