"Dalkey is a little town maybe twelve miles south of Dublin, on the shore. It is an unlikely town, huddled, quiet, pretending to be asleep. Its streets are narrow, not quite self-evident as streets and with meetings which seem accidental. Small shops look closed but are open. Dalkey looks like an humble settlement which must, a traveller feels, be next door to some place of the first importance and distinction. And it is – vestibule of a heavenly conspection."
The Dalkey Archive by Flann O'Brien
It's now the home too of an entertaining, interesting, charming Book Festival celebrated on Bloomsday Weekend - Ulysses' opening is set here also - and it ends with a Quiz for anyone who has ever opened a book at all.