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:
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“But here comes Generosity; giving—not to a decayed artist—but to the arts and sciences themselves.—See,—he builds ... whole schools and colleges for those who come after. Lord! how they will magnify his name!
—One honest tear shed in private over the unfortunate, is worth them all.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“If a nation’s literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)