Ireland’s Borderlands Bid to Become UNESCO’s First ‘Region of Literature’

The landscape straddling the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, once defined by conflict, is poised for a cultural transformation. A new initiative aims to rebrand the area as Ireland’s “northern literary lands” and secure its designation as the world’s first UNESCO Region of Literature.

Spearheaded by Arts Over Borders, the project seeks to map nine “literary ways” across eleven counties, celebrating the rich literary heritage of the region. These routes will connect locations associated with a diverse range of writers, from Jonathan Swift and Samuel Beckett to contemporary author Lisa McGee .

A Literary Constellation

According to Seán Doran, Artistic Director of Arts Over Borders, the region boasts “an unsurpassed concentration of literary greatness crammed into one small corner of Europe.” The initiative aims to highlight this concentration and encourage both locals and tourists to explore the cultural landscape.

Among the proposed routes are:

• The Nobel Way: Linking areas associated with W.B. Yeats (Sligo), Samuel Beckett (County Fermanagh) and Seamus Heaney (County Derry).
• The Poetic Way: Encompassing Monaghan, Tyrone, and Derry, and celebrating poets Patrick Kavanagh, Paul Muldoon, John Montague, and Tom Paulin.
• The Wilde Romantic Way: A walking route through Enniskillen, where Oscar Wilde attended boarding school and drew inspiration for his story, The Happy Prince.
• The Spiritual Way: Including Neolithic rock art at Newgrange, stone iconography at Monasterboice, the Mourne Mountains (which inspired C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia), and sites in Armagh linked to Jonathan Swift.
• The Northwest Dramatic Way: Connecting Restoration-era playwright George Farquhar with Lisa McGee, creator of the television shows Derry Girls and How to Get to Heaven.

Arts Over Borders and the Bio-Festival Model

Arts Over Borders has been presenting cross-border literary and multi-arts festivals in Ireland since 2012, including the internationally acclaimed Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival. The organization, founded by Seán Doran and Liam Browne, utilizes a “Bio-Festival” model, which focuses on the work of a single artist and their connection to a specific place. This model as well informed the ULYSSES European Odyssey 2022-2024, an 18-city project for which Arts Over Borders is the Lead Artistic Partner.

UNESCO Recognition and Future Plans

Currently, UNESCO recognizes 63 “cities of literature,” but no regions. Arts Over Borders will petition the UN agency to create a new regional category, beginning with the Irish borderlands. Doran, who previously co-authored a Rough Guide to Ireland, is also developing an independent guidebook to the literary trail, including a map of both established literary figures and contemporary writers like Maggie O’Farrell and Annemarie Ní Churreáin.

The “northern literary lands” encompass a third of the island of Ireland’s landmass and a population of 1.2 million people across five counties in Northern Ireland and six in the Republic of Ireland.