27th
Oscar Wilde, one of many famous Irish literary exports.
It is in literature that Ireland has had its greatest success in the arts and culture. From Jonathon Swift to James Joyce, the list is long and includes some of the greatest writers in history. Ireland only has 6 million people yet it has produced 4 winners of the Nobel Prize for literature - George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney. It could be argued that 20th and 21st century culture would be a vastly different place if not for the contributions of Irish genius.