Learning at the James Joyce Centre

As an educational charity, learning is at the core of our work at the James Joyce Centre. We aim to promote insight into Joyce’s life and work, through lectures, courses and performances. We strive to promote Joyce’s artistic legacy working with many artists and writers across our educational programmes. We develop activities in partnership with organisations from different sectors and to reach audiences who may not previously have taken part in cultural institutions.

Courses

Ulysses for All 2024

“What is a Nation?” Ulysses and the World Today

31 January — 5 June 2024

Join our global readership and guest speakers for a hybrid online/in-person odyssey atthe James Joyce Centre, Ulysses for All 2024. Dr. Caroline Elbay will lead the course on Joyce’s great Dublin epic. In an attempt to consider the current world situation and attendant issues, the course will focus on the question “What is a Nation?” and aim to arrive at a point where, even at a microcosmic level, an opportunity for what protagonist Leopold Bloom proclaims “I stand for the reform of …morals…New worlds for old…Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile…universal language with universal brotherhood” may be identified.

Click this link to find out more about the course.

Dubliners 2023

Dear, Dirty Dubliners

8 November — 13 December 2023

Dubliners, James Joyce’s debut collection of short stories, is considered one of the finest short story collections ever written, laying bare the intrigues, dirtiness, and indignities of life in Dublin at the turn of the 20^th century. Joyce, by his own admission, got at the “heart” of Dublin with penetrating insights into its denizens, using innovative styles and techniques that would come to define the Modernist movement and beyond.

Dear, Dirty Dubliners is a unique, six-week course that will guide you through the stories in great detail. The course will be led both in the James Joyce Centre and on Zoom. Particular focus will be paid to issues of gender, poverty, colonialism, nationalism, globalization, the Catholic Church, and sexuality, just to name a few. The course will also go over its troubled publication history as well as its enduring legacy and adaptations, such as John Huston’s 1987 film The Dead.

Ulysses for All 2023

Ulysses 101: Past, Present, & Future

1 February — 7 June 2023

Join our global readership and guest speakers for an online odyssey from the James Joyce Centre, Ulysses for All 2023. Dr. Caroline Elbay will lead the course on Joyce’s great Dublin epic. A carnival of language (and linguistic styles) and a celebration of existence, Ulysses deals with (but is not limited to) sex, alcohol, adultery, identity (in all its forms), life, death, religion, and guilt.

I first read Ulysses a year ago, so this was my
second time through the book. With the help
of the class and a second reading, I got
a lot more out of this wonderful work.

Ulysses For All 2021, Joe Hyman

Lectures

The James Joyce Centre hosts a number of guest lectures throughout the year both online and in person. Please see our What’s On section for up-to-date information.

Below is a selection of guest lectures we hosted last year:

Ulysses 100 In Conversation with John Banville

On Thursday Feb 17, 2022, award-winning Irish author, John Banville gave us a unique insight into Ulysses, the masterpiece of modernism, which eludes so many. This free zoom webinar was hosted by Paula Farquharson, Director of the Princess Grace Irish Library (PGIL) in Monaco and Darina Gallagher, Director of the James Joyce Centre in Dublin.

Watch Zoom Webinar

John Banville is an award-winning author, screenwriter, playwright and book reviewer. He was sub-editor at both The Irish Press and The Irish Times and was also literary editor at the latter. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. His latest publications are the novels Snow and Mrs Osmond, and Times Pieces: A Dublin Memoir. He is the recipient of the Man Booker Prize, the Austrian State Prize for Literature, the Kafka Prize and the Prince of Asturias Award. He is a former member of Aosdána. He was born in Wexford and lives in Dublin.

Martha Clifford – Unveiled? with Senan Molony

It’s one of the longest-running parlour games in literature, akin to the hunt for Shakespeare’s Dark Lady. Joyce in Ulysses tells us “Find MC”— the pseudonymous letter partner of Leopold Bloom (posing as Henry Flower) in Ulysses. Senan Molony argues we have to ‘think outside the books’ for a solution to the Clifford conundrum.

Watch Lecture:

James Joyce and George Clancy 1881-1921 with Terence Killeen

2021 marked the centenary of the assassination by the Black and Tans of George Clancy, Lord Mayor of Limerick and former friend, during his college days, of James Joyce. To commemorate the occasion, James Joyce Research Scholar, Terence Killeen presents an online lecture on Joyce’s relationship with Clancy and also reflecting on Clancy’s career in its own right. It promises to throw further light on the unique interaction of two Irish revolutionaries, one in the political, the other in the literary sphere.

Watch Lecture:

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES

The Centre offers a number of educational programmes for primary and secondary school students.

PRIMARY SCHOOL

JAMJOY – Activity Book

Probably the most accessible book about James Joyce ever written, JAMJOY is an activity book designed for primary school children. Filled with games, puzzles, and maps, JAMJOY is a novel and fun way of introducing young children to Joyce and his world.

Download it for free below.

Download JAMJOY

Do Fish Ever Get Seasick? – Ulysses for Kids

You’re never too young to be introduced to one of the greatest books ever written – and that’s exactly what the James Joyce Centre will do with Ulysses for Kids! Through performance, song and storytelling, they bring to life the child characters in Joyce’s Ulysses and explain the elements at the heart of the book – the importance of curiosity and learning, to respect others, the trickiness of family relationships and love and why everyone needs a place to call home. The performance lasts approximately 45 minutes.

In September 2021, we welcomed 6th Class from the Central Model Senior School, to the James Joyce Centre. They were given a short introduction to the writer James Joyce followed by a performance of ‘Do Fish Ever Get Seasick’. The students got to asks questions about the show and everyone got a copy of JAMJOY, the James Joyce activity book.

‘The students really enjoyed their visit! Many thanks!’ Deirdre Gartland, Principal, Central Model Senior School

Please email [email protected] for more information.

Thank you very much for an amazing
transition year experience. I learned so much
about James Joyce, Dublin and much more

John, Age 15

SECONDARY SCHOOL

Walk ‘n’ Talk (Introduction to Joyce)

A 1-hour workshop made up of a 30-minute interactive presentation on Joyce and his works, followed by a 30-minute walking tour of Dublin city, showcasing the locations from Joyce’s life and works. This workshop is perfect for introducing students to Joyce’s work and his impact on world literature, and for developing students’ existing knowledge of Joyce and Joyce’s Dublin.

Please email [email protected] for more information.

Student Workshop

A 1-hour interactive bespoke workshop devoted to reading, discussing, and analysing selected samples from Joyce’s work, including one or two short stories from Dubliners or a sample section from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Please note that student group leaders are asked to notify the Centre which short stories/passages they would like to have read and discussed in advance of the workshop.

Please email [email protected] for more information.

Dame Street in Dublin City Centre