Famous playwrights, actors, musicians, and race-car drivers make their home in Dalkey today. Photograph by Peter Matthews

Flann O’Brien, a one-time resident, immortalized the town in his sharply satirical The Dalkey Archive. Nobel laureate and great wit George Bernard Shaw lived in Torca Cottage on the side of Dalkey Hill during his childhood. Down the coast at Sandycove stands a martello tower, built in 1804, that houses the James Joyce Museum. Joyce lived here in 1904 along with fellow writer Oliver St. John Gogarty.

Anyone who has read Ulysses will recognize the tower as the setting for the opening scene where we meet the young Stephen Dedalus, Joyce’s alter ego. Later in the story Dedalus enjoys a walk along another stretch of nearby coast at Sandymount, where he describes the beach as the “lacefringe of the tide.”

Today Dalkey is home to Hugh Leonard, the award-winning writer of plays such as Da, and filmmaker Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Michael Collins).

Read Maeve Binchy’s reflections on Dalkey—her hometown—in the January/February 2000 issue of TRAVELER.

TRAVELER staff and guest celebrities choose their favorite destinations in Personal Places of a Lifetime.