PagineSwift’s satire, Wilde’s wit, Stoker’s vampire, Yeats’s poems, Joyce’s Dublin and Beckett’s tramps waiting for Godot — for a small island, Ireland has produced an astonishing share of the world’s great writers, including four winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Here are 56 essential Irish books, from the ancient sagas to Sally Rooney, with short guides to the great Irish authors, where to start, and many free to read online.
New to Irish literature? Begin with one of these — or follow our step-by-step guide, What to Read for Irish Classics →
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Short biographies, what to read first, and every book of theirs on this list.
Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, was the greatest satirist in English. Gulliver’s Travels (1726) — the voyages of Lemuel Gulliver to the tiny Lilliputians, the giant Brobdingnagians, the floating island of Laputa and the land of the wise horses — mocks politics, science and human pride. A Modest Proposal (1729), which “suggests” that poor Irish families sell their children as food, is the most famous piece of savage irony ever written.
Where to start: Gulliver’s Travels
On this list: Gulliver’s Travels · A Modest Proposal
Oscar Wilde, born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College and Oxford, became the most dazzling wit of late-Victorian London. He wrote fairy tales (The Happy Prince), one novel (The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890) and comedies including The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Months after its triumphant opening he was convicted of “gross indecency” for his relationships with men and sentenced to two years’ hard labour; he died in exile in Paris at 46.
Where to start: The Importance of Being Earnest
On this list: The Happy Prince and Other Tales · The Picture of Dorian Gray · The Importance of Being Earnest
Bram Stoker was a Dublin civil servant and theatre critic who became business manager of the actor Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theatre in London. In his spare time he wrote novels, and in 1897 published Dracula, told through diaries, letters and newspaper cuttings — the book that defined the vampire for the modern world.
Where to start: Dracula
On this list: Dracula
William Butler Yeats led the Irish Literary Revival, gathering folklore in The Celtic Twilight (1893) and co-founding the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1904. His poems range from the dreamy “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” to the political “Easter, 1916” and the prophetic “The Second Coming” (“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”). He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 and served as a senator of the new Irish Free State.
Where to start: The Wind Among the Reeds
On this list: The Celtic Twilight · The Wind Among the Reeds · The Tower
George Bernard Shaw left Dublin for London at 20 and became the most famous playwright of his age — a socialist, vegetarian and tireless debater whose comedies of ideas include Arms and the Man, Man and Superman, Pygmalion (1913; later the musical My Fair Lady) and Saint Joan (1923). He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925 and an Academy Award for the screenplay of Pygmalion — the first person to win both.
Where to start: Pygmalion
On this list: Pygmalion · Saint Joan
James Joyce left Ireland at 22 but wrote about nothing but Dublin. Dubliners (1914) is a quietly devastating collection of stories; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) follows Stephen Dedalus growing into a writer; and Ulysses (1922), one day in Dublin — 16 June 1904, celebrated every year as Bloomsday — in the life of Leopold Bloom, transformed the novel. Finnegans Wake (1939) goes further still.
Reading order: Read Joyce in order: Dubliners, then A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, then Ulysses (with a guide) — and leave Finnegans Wake for last.
On this list: Dubliners · A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man · Ulysses · Finnegans Wake
Samuel Beckett was Joyce’s young assistant in Paris, served in the French Resistance, and wrote mostly in French. Waiting for Godot (1953), in which two tramps wait for someone who never comes, changed theatre forever; Endgame and Krapp’s Last Tape followed. Bleak and very funny, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969.
Where to start: Waiting for Godot
On this list: Murphy · Waiting for Godot
Seamus Heaney grew up on a farm in County Derry and wrote poems of the land, memory and the Troubles in Northern Ireland, beginning with Death of a Naturalist (1966), whose poem “Digging” compares his pen to his father’s spade. North (1975) and his bestselling translation of Beowulf (1999) followed. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. His last words, texted to his wife, were “Noli timere” — “Don’t be afraid.”
Where to start: Death of a Naturalist
On this list: Death of a Naturalist · North
7 of these are free to read in Pagine right now (📖 Read free). The rest link to a free public-domain edition or to Open Library, where many can be borrowed free.
Print it, save it as a PDF, email it to yourself or share it with a friend, book club or class. Every copy links back to pagineapp.com, and the free Pagine app tracks every book you finish.
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Android19 free books by Irish authors in Pagine — including titles beyond this list.
Every title on the list links to the free sources that may have it. Public-domain books are free to read and download; newer books can often be borrowed free.
W. B. Yeats (1923), George Bernard Shaw (1925), Samuel Beckett (1969) and Seamus Heaney (1995) all won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Most Irish classics before 1930 — Swift, Wilde, Stoker, Yeats, Synge, early Joyce — are free to read online. Pagine’s library also tags books in the Irish language and by Irish authors; explore them from our reading levels pages.
Joyce’s Dubliners, Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Stoker’s Dracula, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Heaney’s Death of a Naturalist are wonderful starting points.
No — read Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man first, then Ulysses with a chapter guide. Many readers start Ulysses on Bloomsday, 16 June.
W. B. Yeats (1923), George Bernard Shaw (1925), Samuel Beckett (1969) and Seamus Heaney (1995).
Yes. Works published in 1930 or earlier, including Gulliver’s Travels, Dracula, Dubliners, Ulysses and Wilde’s plays, are in the US public domain and free to read online.
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