Hotels near Marsh's Library

Marsh's Library on St Patrick's Close was incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1707, which makes it the oldest public library in Ireland and, for roughly 150 years, the only public library in Dublin. Archbishop Narcissus Marsh founded it and Sir William Robinson designed the building. Very little has moved since. Readers still sit at the original table, and the wired alcoves at the back, built to lock scholars in with the rarest books, are still there. The library's own account of its readers is short and useful: Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker and James Joyce all read here. Entry is 8 euro for adults, 6 euro for students and over-65s, and free under 18.

The Stoker connection is why the library keeps appearing on Bram Stoker Festival venue lists, and why its calendar needs checking before anything else in this guide. Marsh's Library opens Tuesday to Friday from 09:30 to 17:00 and Saturday from 10:00 to 17:00. It closes on Sundays, Mondays and bank holidays. Across the festival window of Friday 23 to Monday 26 October 2026 that leaves exactly two days, Friday 23 and Saturday 24. Sunday 25 and the bank holiday Monday are out, whatever the programme is doing outside.

Outside is not a figure of speech. St Patrick's Park, directly across the close, has served as the festival's family hub, so the quietest eighteenth-century room in the city can have a funfair forty metres from its windows. The reading room stays silent regardless, and the 2026 exhibition, Gulliver 300, runs on through the autumn.

Pro Tip: Be at the door for 09:30 on Friday 23 October. You get the gallery and the reading cages to yourself for roughly forty minutes before the first groups reach St Patrick's Close, and the same 8 euro ticket covers the small walled garden behind the building.