Arts and Literature
- 5 January—Sebastian Barry wins the Costa Prize for Fiction for his novel The Secret Scripture at the 2008 Costa Book Awards.
- 19 March—The poet Seamus Heaney is awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature, honouring him for his lifetime's work.
- 7–8 March—Brian Cowen nude portraits controversy: Nude portraits of the Taoiseach are clandestinely hung in the National Gallery of Ireland and Royal Hibernian Academy's gallery by Conor Casby.
- 17 April—Seamus Heaney's 70th birthday. Commemorative audio recording, Seamus Heaney Collected Poems, released of Heaney reading from his collected work.
- 11 June—Man Gone Down, the debut novel of American Michael Thomas, wins the 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
- 24 November—Colm Tóibín (Brooklyn) and Peter Murphy (John the Revelator) are included on the shortlist for the 2009 Costa Book Awards.
- c. September—Size2shoes release their first album, Size2shoes.
Read more about this topic: 2009 In Ireland
Famous quotes containing the words arts and, arts and/or literature:
“The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“Musick is certainly a very agreeable Entertainment, but if it would take the entire Possession of our Ears, if it would make us incapable of hearing Sense, if it would exclude Arts that have a much greater Tendency to the Refinement of human Nature; I must confess I would allow it no better Quarter than Plato has done, who banishes it out of his Common-wealth.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)