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Dublin is the 4th UNESCO City of literature in the world and is celebrating 15 years as a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities’ Network.

With 4 Nobel writers, Séamus Heaney, Samuel Beckett, George Bernard Shaw and William Butler Yeats ‘in a country that punches above its literary weight’ (The Guardian 20/8/24), it has an impressive list of writers, poets, and playwrights who have been recognised and respected world-wide.

Writing continues to flourish and a regular glance at the best-sellers charts or awards’ shortlists proves it.

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In other towns, clever people go out and make money. In Dublin, clever people go home and write their books.

As Anne Enright, the Booker prize winner

Reading and writing is a core activity for Dubliners as they daily cherry pick from a host of events at book stores, museums, festivals and theatres.

The Dublin UNESCO City of Literature is managed by Dublin City Libraries, which is part of Dublin City Council’s Department of Culture, Recreation, and Economic Services. The bid for Dublin to become a city of literature was submitted by Dublin City Libraries with strong support from the literary sector.

Resourced and funded by Dublin City Council, the Dublin UNESCO City of Literature office also receives funding for programmes from The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports & Media.

2025, is a year for anniversaries with the popular One Dublin One Book campaign celebrating its 20th anniversary in April and The Dublin Literary Award, an international prize for excellence in world literature celebrating its 30th anniversary in May.

The office co-ordinates the Dublin UNESCO City of Literature network with key literary organisations and services who share practice and guidance.

The last monitoring report sent to UNESCO was at the end of 2021.

Following on from the Strategic Plan 2020 – 2022 a new strategy is being developed to guide the work of the office from 2025.