Ulysses is practically a street map of Dublin - and is rendered so life like you can almost smell the place. I prefer it to the shirt stoires, though there are long passages that are often mind-boggling, and I did reach for a few reader's guides (on the internet), to help smooth over some plot points.

At Swim Two Birds is great and funny, but The Poor Mouth had me laughing out loud. Both are great parodies of the Irish lit tradition, both real and imagined.

YAR NAM IS JAMS O'DONNELL!

Frank O'Connor might be the best short story writer in the history of the English language, let alone Ireland. McGahern and Trevor are both very good writers, but to me their books can be appreciated but never treasured; O'Connor's work feels much richer to me.

No writer in this world has had me laughing as hard or as loud as Flann O'Brien. "The Poor Mouth" is brilliant, but the best of all are his collected "Cruiskeen Lawn" columns from the Irish Times which he wrote under the name Myles na gCopaleen (also published by the Dalkey Press.)

I would also recommend Nuala ni Dhomnaill's poems, for a womanly perspective.

I submit that if one wants to get a fuller picture of Ireland, check out 'The Year of the French' also.

Every book mentioned here is worth reading. But there are others -- Juanita Casey's The Horse of Selene, for instance... I remember discovering John Banville in the late seventies when I was living in the West of Ireland and thinking what a richly textured voice his was. And is. A writer to be grateful for...

Theresa - I am delighted that you refer to The Horse of Selene, a great novel by a writer of Irish Traveller heritage that is written out of the typical Irish literature greatest hits parade partly because, I imagine, commentators don't quite know how to categorise a work by an Irish minority writer!

I suppose I should not have been surprised to see that Banville did not include one woman writer, not even Edna O'Brien. Her Country Girls Trilogy is a great intro to her work. She does not romanticize Ireland. She does not make light of what is was like (and still is to some extent) for females to make their way. There are a lot of funny bits and when published, it was considered scandalous. For a darker suspense tale, check out In the Forest.

This piece is a fine quick guide to the very best of modern Irish literature and no matter what you read from this selection, you will see something of it in Ireland no doubt.

John Banville is right in saying there are two Irelands. In writing that "sometimes it does seem that every Irish person aspires to the condition of Dubliner" Banville shows that he has not ventured out enough into the second Ireland - "Not Dublin" - since the arrival of the Celtic boom times.

"Not Dublin" is indeed a very different place to the metropolis, a place which by and large has gained in confidence and identity very different to the capital in the last several years. In fact, the next great literary trend I am waiting to see emerge from Ireland is that which shows this renaissance.

McCabe, McGahern and Trevor are of a generation which has come from before. Banville himself, born in "Not Dublin" seems to have become a Dubliner, and would appear to share with the natives of the capital a feeling that secretly, we would all rather be Dubs. Perhaps it would be better to write that "sometimes it does seem that every Irish writer aspires to the condition of the Dubliner." In a country who's publishing and media are controlled largely in the capital city, it is maybe not a surprise that the majority of publications and works reflect that fact.

When you go to Ireland enjoy John Banville's list, and throw in a sample of his own superb body of work to boot. But leave out the bit that we'd all rather be Dubs. If there's one good thing the Celtic Tiger brought amidst the spiralling house prices, long work hours and new social tensions, it's a renewed confidence in the spirit of the provinces.

For some literary fun in Ireland, take an armchair trip with Kevin O'Hara's "Last of the Donkey Pilgrims" (2004) or Pete McCarthy's "McCarthy's Bar" (2000). While published just a few years apart, they offer two very different views of the Irish landscape and people over the last three decades. "Last of the Donkey Pilgrims" recounts a trip taken by O'Hara--with donkey and cart--25 years earlier. A young Irish-American in search of himself and his Irish roots, O'Hara sets off with limited funds, a temperamental donkey and a year to make a complete circuit of Ireland. Middle-aged McCarthy, who was raised in his father's England but spent summers in his mother's Ireland, has a looser agenda in his quest to make peace with his Irishness; the motto for his trip is "Never pass a bar with your name on it," which accounts for some of his best encounters with the Irish populace. Both authors approach Ireland, the Irish and themselves with humor and candor. They also provide historical context for understanding today's Ireland. If you read O'Hara first, you'll appreciate just how much the country has changed in the span of a few decades. Both books offer laugh-out-loud passages as well as thoughtful reflections on the Irish diaspora. McCarthy came out with a follow-up book in 2002, "The Road to McCarthy," in which he pursues the ancient McCarthy clan as well as other famous and infamous Irishmen in places as remote as Tasmania, Monserrat and Alaska.

Read a book of poems by Patrick Kavanagh. I have to say that I love W.B. Yeats, especially his mythological works, but Patick Kavanagh lives unfairly in his shadow. In a 2000 Irish Times survey, ten of his poems ranked in the top fifty, and he was deemed second favourite poet after Yeats. He was a farmer-poet and a song-writer, who lived two or three generation after Yeats alongside Samuel Beckett, and sung a different side of Irish sorrow. He's best known for his "The Great Hunger" and "On Raglan Road," which inspired a Van Morrison song. His interrogation of Irish religiousity is perhaps the most commented theme of his writings. He also wrote a couple short novels. The only one I can recommend, being the only one I've read, is Tarry Flynn.