St Patrick’s Day Quiz – take a literary tour of Ireland

From Dublin to the Aran Islands and up to Donegal, test your knowledge of Ireland's literary landscape
  
  


  1. “I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.” Which writer?

    1. James Joyce

    2. JP Dunleavy

    3. Roddy Doyle

    4. Marian Keyes

  2. Edna O’Brien’s novel The Country Girls was based on her youth in which Irish county?

    1. Donegal

    2. Clare

    3. Offaly

    4. Sligo

  3. John Banville was born and brought up in Wexford. Which of his novels features a fictionalised version of the seaside town of Rosslare?

    1. The Book of Evidence

    2. The Sea

    3. Shroud

    4. The Untouchable

  4. Colm Toibin’s novels Brooklyn and Nora Webster are set in his home town of Enniscorthy. But which city provides the backdrop for his first novel, The South?

    1. Limerick

    2. Barcelona

    3. Kilkenny

    4. Buenos Aires

  5. Eimear McBride was born in Liverpool, grew up in Sligo and Mayo and credits a Dublin-born writer with changing the course of her entire life. Who was it?

    1. Samuel Beckett

    2. Roddy Doyle

    3. Sebastian Barry

    4. James Joyce

  6. What name did Roddy Doyle give to the fictional Dublin suburb where his books are set?

    1. Liberty Bay

    2. Barrytown

    3. Doylebrook

    4. Northtown

  7. Which dystopia set in the west of Ireland in 2053 features “hoors, herb, fetish parlours, grog pits, needle alleys, dream salons and Chinese restaurants”?

    1. Emerald Germs of Ireland by Patrick McCabe

    2. Young Skins by Colin Barrett

    3. City of Bohane by Kevin Barry

    4. Where Rainbows End by Cecilia Ahern

  8. “Go to the Aran Islands… Live there as one of the people themselves. Express a life that has never found expression.” Whose advice to whom?

    1. Padraic Colum to Flann O’Brien

    2. WB Yeats to JM Synge

    3. Lady Gregory to Douglas Hyde

    4. Harriet Shaw Weaver to James Joyce

  9. Which fantastical realm was inspired by the Mourne Mountains and landscape of County Down?

    1. Narnia

    2. Middle-earth

    3. Westeros

    4. Earthsea

  10. Seamus Heaney’s 1984 collection Station Island is named for an ancient pilgrimage site in County Donegal. To which writer is it dedicated?

    1. Paul Muldoon

    2. Frank McGuinness

    3. Brian Friel

    4. Jennifer Johnston

Solutions

1:A, 2:B, 3:B, 4:B, 5:D, 6:B, 7:C, 8:B, 9:A, 10:C

Scores

  1. 3 and above.

    More Pricks Than Kicks.

  2. 6 and above.

    Fair to Middling.

  3. 9 and above.

    Happy Days!
 

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