Matt Damon will return to the seaside village of Dalkey in Dublin - albeit via video link - as a guest speaker at this year's Dalkey Book Festival.
The actor spent much of early 2020 in lockdown in the town when the pandemic struck as he was filming his forthcoming film, The Last Duel, and was soon hailed as an adopted son by the locals.
Now he will make a virtual return to Dalkey when he talks to David McWilliams on Sunday June 20 as part of the festival and no doubt, he will discuss his time in the village, which he described as "like a fairytale".
During his enforced stay, the Hollywood star and his family lived in the former home of Formula One star Eddie Irvine and spent his time visiting local coffee shops and bookshops, and in one celebrated moment, went for a swim at the local Vico swimming area, with his togs in a SuperValu bag.
Describing lockdown life in Dublin last year, Damon said: "It's incredible. This is one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever been.
"Even in the lockdown, they’re like, 'you got to stay within two kilometres of your house’. Two kilometres here, there’s trees and forests and woods and ocean and I can’t think of any place you’d rather want to be in a two-kilometre radius of.
March 2020 was quite a month, not only globally, but locally… as it was when actor #MattDamon arrived in Dalkey. This year Matt will join our line-up of guests + talk to @davidmcw about lockdown in fairy-tale Dalkey, and his love of Ireland. #DalkeyBookFestival pic.twitter.com/nrFzexUIcY
— Dalkey Book Festival (@dalkeybookfest) May 31, 2021
"It feels a bit, you know, like a fairy tale here."
Discussing his now famous dip at the Vico, he told Spin 1038, "I was with the kids, we were taking a dip in water there, and so we had towels to dry off with, so I think we just grabbed one of our SuperValu bags and stuffed it. We were just improvising,"
President Michael D. Higgins, best-selling author Isabel Allende, Professor Brian Cox, and exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, are also among the guests at this year’s Dalkey Book Festival, which will be streamed from the Martello Tower.
