IRELAND'S first railway was opened between Dublin and Kingstown—now Dún Laoghaire—in 1834, just nine years after the pioneering Stockton and Darlington opened for traffic. The Irish line made history as the world’s first commuter railway. Steam-powered, it was built to the standard British gauge of four feet eight-and-a-half inches between the rails and today’s modern, electric DART trains still use the route on their way to and from Greystones.

‘AN IRISHMAN'S heart is nothing but his imagination,’ observed George Bernard Shaw (GBS). In the history of literature, few writers have accumulated more honours than the extraordinary Dubliner.