09 June, 2020
Poignant and moving, Sally Rooney's Normal People was a literary blockbuster when it came out in 2018. Two years down the line, Marianne and Connell's evolving relationship has been our on-screen salve during lockdown, treating us to momentary escapism as the plot wanders between Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way, Northern Italy and Swedish Lapland. We've found the destinations where fiction becomes reality.
Sligo, Ireland
Tobercurry (or Tubbercurry) stood in for the fictional town of Carricklea in the west of Ireland. Fans of the show will recognise Teeling Street, the main thoroughfare - make like Marianne and Con in the New Year's Eve scene and drop into Brennan's Bar. Nearby, the town's Killoran's Bar and St John the Evangelist Church also make an appearance.
Sligo, Ireland
The scenes when Marianne and Connell's secret romance plays out between tufted dunes were filmed on Sligo's windswept northern coast. Part of the Wild Atlantic Way, Streedagh Strand is a narrow, golden stretch that arcs from Streedagh Point to Connor's Island, and is the site where three ships from the Spanish Armada became grounded in 1588.
Stay: The Hide
Dublin, Ireland
Rooney is an alumna of Trinity College Dublin, so it's perhaps unsurprising that a good chunk of the novel plays out on campus. You'll spot Connell studying in the brutalist Berkeley Library and Marianne in the Marsh's Library, while the university's Parliament Square, cricket pitches and Robert Emmet Theatre also pop up in the TV drama.
Stay: The Alex
Dublin, Ireland
While most student digs would barely scrape a health-and-safety inspection, we'd happily curate a Pinterest board dedicated to the faded grandeur of Marianne's Georgian home in Dublin 4. It's privately owned so you can't go inside, but wandering among the street of 19th-century red-brick houses, each buffered by a fringe of greenery, is as good a time as any to daydream.
Stay: Pembroke Townhouse
Dublin's hotels, eateries and various landmarks crop up throughout the show. Connell's terraced home was shot in Shankill, in the city's south, while student nights out fuelled by booze and pool are set in the candlelit Blackbird in the Rathmines neighbourhood. The White Sands Hotel in Portmarnock, along with its Tomangos nightclub, was used for the school debs and fundraising event, while Lukas's lofty apartment was in fact set in the painting department of the National College of Art and Design.
Stay: The Dean
Ireland
A half-hour drive from Dublin, this Palladian-style, single-storey hunting lodge doubles up as Marianne's affluent family house. Originally part of the Powerscourt Estate in Enniskerry, it has its own paddock, in which Marianne whiles away her summer break. It's privately owned so not open for viewing, but we recommend immersing yourself in the natural beauty of the surrounding area.
Tenuta Sverzano, Sant'Oreste, Italy
Marianne's fictional family villa may have been in Trieste, but the series' production team happened upon this country home near Sant'Oreste as a stand-in. "Happened upon" is a bit of a fib; this place was used in Eat, Pray, Love too. An hour's drive north of Rome, it's available to rent through Airbnb. While here, the couple's shopping trip takes them to the hilltop town of Stimigliano, where they stop in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele for gelato.
Dublin, Ireland
Not all the Italian scenes were filmed in Italy. Home to a transplant of Francis Bacon's South Kensington studio, Hugh Lane Gallery stood in for Venice's Guggenheim Museum - a set was built in the gallery's atrium especially for Normal People.
Stay: Kelly's Hotel
Sweden
On the Gulf of Bothnia, near the Sweden-Finland border, snow-dusted Luleå was used as the backdrop for Marianne's Erasmus stint abroad. That scene when Marianne walks on the frozen Baltic Sea is, in fact, less strange than fiction - each winter, this stretch of water freezes so thick that residents often skate to nearby islands. Not all of the Sweden scenes were filmed on Scandi turf, however. Marianne's dinner with Lukas was shot in Dublin's Forest Avenue and the city's Fumbally café is her go-to for coffee (the snow in these scenes was fake FYI).
Stay: Treehotel
