Irish Navy Builds Ships Named After Samuel Beckett & James Joyce

It’s how things go around here. You do some research on Samuel Beck­et­t’s plays (see post from ear­li­er today) and you dis­cov­er there’s a naval ship ded­i­cat­ed to the Irish play­wright. Launched in Novem­ber 2013 and com­mis­sioned in May 2014, LÉ Samuel Beck­ett (P61) patrols Irish waters, allow­ing the Irish navy to con­duct search and res­cue oper­a­tions, under­take ves­sel board­ings, and also pro­tect fish­eries. Accord­ing to an Irish site, the ship “rep­re­sents an updat­ed and length­ened ver­sion of the orig­i­nal RÓISÍN Class OPVs… She is built to the high­est inter­na­tion­al stan­dards in terms of safe­ty, equip­ment fit, tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion and crew com­fort.” The cost, 56 mil­lion euros.

Of course, the Irish haven’t for­got­ten their oth­er great lit­er­ary son. LÉ James Joyce (P62) will be launched in May 2015. And guess what, LÉ Sea­mus Heaney may soon be on the hori­zon.

Does any­one know of anoth­er nation that hon­ors its artists in such a way?