New Dublin hotel celebrates a Nobel prize-winner

Rising eight storeys and with over 200 bedrooms, The Samuel is a bold new addition to Dublin’s hotel accommodation. With its modern, best-in-class architecture and central location in the city’s rejuvenated and dynamic docklands, it’s the perfect base for a city break.

The hotel is named after one of Ireland’s greatest writers, and one of the island’s four winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Samuel Beckett. The twentieth-century, avant-garde, literary master, probably best known for his play ‘Waiting for Godot’, was born in Dublin.

Commenting on the opening of the hotel, the Samuel’s general manager, Ann-Marie Traynor, says: “In Dublin, we are proud of our people, culture and history. We feel the connection between people and place is really reflected throughout the Samuel, whether that be the link to our literary legend, Samuel Beckett, in our name, or through the eye-catching art by local creatives visible throughout the Samuel Bar and Grill.”

The hotel is located close to another Beckett landmark in the city, the Samuel Beckett Bridge, a modern and eye-catching construction that evokes the shape of the Irish harp.

With many of Dublin’s biggest attractions nearby, including the award-winning EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum and the Jeannie Johnston Famine Ship, the Samuel offers a great base for exploring the city.

Dublin is a UNESCO City of Literature and those interested in its literary credentials should not miss the MoLI (Museum of Literature Ireland). This year it has multiple events celebrating another of Ireland’s greatest writers, James Joyce. Joyce’s famous novel Ulysses marks the centenary of its publication in 2022.

There is also the opportunity to ‘hear’ from some of the city’s most famous writers by visiting their statues in the city and using a QR code to get a call from them. From James Joyce to Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, the genius of these writers is expressed in short monologues.

Beckett spent his formative years at Portora Royal school in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, the same school that Oscar Wilde attended 50 years previously, before returning to study at Trinity College, Dublin. A visit to the university is a must for book lovers.

As well as the world-renowned, ninth-century Book of Kells, on show in the university’s Treasury, Trinity also boasts The Long Room, regarded as one of the most impressive libraries on the world.

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