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Dubliners Tour

Marty — Sat, 28 Oct 2017 14:00:00 +0000

Joyce once referred to Dublin as the ‘centre of paralysis’, a city that he felt was backward and repressive in contrast to the modern capitals of Europe. This idea found its expression in Dubliners, a short story collection that illustrates the effects of this restrictive atmosphere on the city’s population. Join our guide on a walk that visits some of the key locations from both the collection and the author’s life, discussing all the while Joyce’s critical portrayal of the social, religious and political landscape of his home town. This tour also gives some insight into the publication history of the collection, itself a story that creates a sense of Joyce’s artistic mission and his controversial approach to writing about Dublin. This tour ends at O’Connell Bridge.

‘The Confirmation Suit’ by Brendan Behan – Performed by Gary Cooke, Directed by Peter Sheridan

Marty — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 18:30:00 +0000

The James Joyce Centre are delighted to be hosting a performance of Brendan Behan’s ‘The Confirmation Suit’ on 1 November. This acclaimed show star’s Gary Cooke as the young Brendan Behan and is directed by Peter Sheridan. After the performance there will be a short Q&A with the director.

Brendan Behan is twelve years old and about to make his confirmation. It is a coming of age moment for all Catholic boys, full of excitement and promise. That’s how it is for Brendan until he learns that his suit is to be made by an elderly seamstress, Miss McCann, who lives upstairs in their tenement house.

Miss McCann specialises in making shrouds for the dead. As Brendan’s father Stephen remarks,”people are only dying to get into one of her creations.” It is not a good omen. Brendan is terrified that his suit will be anything but fashionable and he lives in dread of what he may be forced to wear on his big day.

As the story unfolds, the young Brendan becomes more and more agitated. In the end we know that something has to give. The question is whether Brendan will hold it all together or implode.

Written in 1962, just two short years before Behan’s death, the Confirmation Suit is filled with humour, insight and pathos. It is a story that still resonates today, more than fifty years after its composition.

FEAST Presents Tasting Joyce

Marty — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 18:45:00 +0000

An 8 Course ‘Tasting’ Menu

Presented by

Join FEAST at the James Joyce Centre for a journey through the tastes and smells of Joyce’s Dublin. Accessing Joyce’s writing through the food and scents that frame them this 8 course ‘tasting’ menu will provide a range of food encounters that will reflect and unravel ideas in Joyce’s work.

The evening will include readings, artworks by Nuala Clooney and Kaye Winwood and a miscellany of key foods and ingredients referenced by Joyce.

Evening curated by Elisa Oliver in collaboration with the James Joyce Centre Dublin and Irish Food Trail.

The menu caters for vegetarians but sadly other specific dietary requirements cannot be accommodated.

FEAST is a series of online publications that explore our relationship with food as a social event, a marker of identity, a product of history and a commodity for trade. Eclectic and scatological in approach FEAST works closely with writers, artists, curators and chefs to reflect and comment on encounters and debates between the culinary, literary and visual arts. Placing a lens on the varied operation of food within our everyday FEAST further touches on wider cultural discourses around the body, sexuality, consumption, class and gender. FEAST is co edited by Elisa Oliver and Laura Mansfield

More information from www.feastjournal.co.uk

Feast is supported by the Liverpool Ireland Cultural Corridor, an initiative of Bluecoat and Liverpool City Council.

Introducing Joyce’s Dublin Tour

Marty — Sat, 04 Nov 2017 14:00:00 +0000

Though Joyce lived most of his life outside of Ireland, Dublin would provide the backdrop for virtually all of his work. On a stroll around the north inner city, our guide will explain the real-life inspiration behind some of Joyce’s most celebrated writing and will show just how central the streetscape of the ‘Hibernian metropolis’ is to the author’s life and art. The tour visits stops such as Joyce’s alma mater, Belvedere College; Hardwicke Street, the setting of the short story ‘The Boarding House'; The Gresham Hotel, the setting of the final and most memorable scene of the short story ‘The Dead'; and the James Joyce Statue on North Earl Street, affectionately known as the ‘Prick with the Stick’. The tour also includes a visit to the site of one of the most famous addresses in English literature, No. 7 Eccles Street, and retraces the steps of Leopold Bloom’s celebrated journey to buy a pork kidney in the fourth episode of Ulysses. This tour ends on O’Connell Street.

Trevor White – ‘James Joyce & the Little Lord Mayor (Alfie Byrne)’

Marty — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 18:30:00 +0000

We’re delighted that the second lecture in our 2017 Autumn/Winter Series will see Trevor White discuss the many significant links between James Joyce and the most popular Dublin-born politician of the 20th Century, Alfie Byrne, on 6 November at 6:30pm.

Places are free but limited! Book below or call us on 01 878 8547 to reserve your place.