Joseph O’Connor’s sprightly profile of Dún Laoghaire (Review, 22 June) mentions that Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett and Bram Stoker had all once walked the town’s East Pier.
Another celebrated writer, Henry James, stayed at the Royal Marine Hotel in July and August 1891, overlooking the seafront in what was then Kingstown, wrote two short stories (The Chaperon and The Private Life) during his visit, and no doubt strolled the pier.
James said of what would become, after independence, Dún Laoghaire, that it was “a kind of watery suburb of Dublin”.
Jonathan Williams
Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, Ireland
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