 In the 20th century , Ireland produced four winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature : George Bernard Shaw , William Butler Yeats , Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney . Although not a Nobel Prize winner , James Joyce is widely considered to be one of the most significant writers of the 20th century . Joyce 's 1922 novel Ulysses is considered one of the most important works of Modernist literature and his life is celebrated annually on 16 June in Dublin as " Bloomsday " . Modern Irish literature is often connected with its rural heritage through writers such as John McGahern and poets such as Seamus Heaney . 
