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18 Ballads from Ulysses

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Book Launch/Performance

8 October 2024 at 7pm

The James Joyce Centre on Tuesday, 8 October 2024 at 7pm had the pleasure of welcoming the book launch of 18 Ballads from James Joyce’s Ulysses by Val O’Donnell.

This collection of new ballads, based on characters featured in James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses, has just been published. The collection consists of eighteen ballads written by Val O’Donnell and set to airs of music which are referred to in Ulysses or in other works of James Joyce. The collection includes short quotes from Ulysses, a note on the music and suggestions for accessing the original sheet music and performances of the airs chosen for the ballads. Val O’Donnell thought it would be a welcome idea to give a musical voice to some of the characters that feature in James Joyce’s most famous work and to set their ballads to music associated with James Joyce and his works.Copies of 18 Ballads from James Joyce’s Ulysses are on sale at the James Joyce Centre for €10.

The event started at 7pm, with a short drinks reception followed by an entertainment provided by three special guests, who performed a selection from the ballads in the collection. The address at the launch was given by Dublin-born poet and writer, Brian Lynch.

The event will conclude by 9 pm.

Admission is free but booking is essential. To book tickets, click here.

Val O’Donnell has a connection with the theatre for over 50 years as an actor, director and adaptor of Irish literature. In 2011, Val established The JoyceStagers theatre company to perform his adaptations from the works of James Joyce. The JoyceStagers have performed “The Funeral of Paddy Dignam,” adapted by Val from the 6th episode of Ulysses, annually on Bloomsday at Glasnevin Cemetary. They have also performed his adaptations from Episodes 8, 12, and 16 at various locations in Dublin around Bloomsday. Val has a lifelong interest in music and plays piano. Email him at [email protected].

The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

The Company of Trees

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Concert

6 October 2024 at 4pm

Antelope Productions in association with Field Exchange presented The Company of Trees: A Celebration in Words and Music on Sunday, 6 October 2024 at 4pm.

The Company of Trees celebrated our long and complex relationship with the forest world through literature and music. Using some of the great poetry, prose, music and song that trees have inspired over the centuries, the show explored their emotional, aesthetic, environmental and philosophical impact on our daily lives.

The Company of Trees journeyed through the natural cycle from planting to maturity and entertained, informed, provoked and, above all, raise awareness of a relationship now facing unprecedented threat.

The Company of Trees was performed by Michael James Ford, Susannah De Wrixon and Kyle Hixon in collaboration with the Delmaine String Quartet. It also featured striking photographic and video images by Brendan Keogh.

“If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.” Hal Borland

The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Finnegans Wake & Flann O’Brien

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Book Launch

5 October 2024 at 6.30pm

On Saturday, 5 October 2024 at 6.30pm the James Joyce Centre welcomed the launch of two extraordinary new works of scholarship about James Joyce and Flann O’Brien.

Finnegans Wake – Human and Nonhuman Histories (Edinburgh University Press; edited by Richard Barlow and Paul Fagan) opens new ground by exploring the productive tension between anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric readings of James Joyce’s final modernist masterpiece. Drawing on the most up-to-date theories and methodologies, twelve leading Joyce scholars offer valuable new insights into the interwoven historical and planetary dimensions of Finnegans Wake. The volume’s focus allows the contributors to read the Wake’s nonhuman imaginary in original, often surprising comparative contexts and to spotlight enlightening nonhuman themes in Joyce’s circular history. A century later, Finnegans Wake remains a vibrant and vital text in which to interrogate the limits, exploitations and common plight of human and nonhuman life in the 21st-century.

Flann O’Brien and the Nonhuman: Environments, Animals, Machines (Cork University Press; edited by Katherine Ebury, Paul Fagan and John Greaney) is the first book to explore in detail the author’s interest in the agency, materiality, and potential sentience of environments, animals and machines. At every turn, O’Brien’s writing challenges anthropocentric values and troubles conventional notions of the human. O’Brien’s deconstruction of conventional narratives of the human-nonhuman binary extends across genres. Drawing on a wide range of methodologies, paradigms and theorists, the contributors unearth new historical contexts for the study of O’Brien. These interventions not only bring new dimensions of O’Brien’s work to the surface, but reveal him as a key but overlooked figure for understanding the role of the nonhuman in Irish modernist cultural production.

The collections were launched by Sharae Deckard and Tom Walker, with additional remarks by the editors Paul Fagan, Richard Barlow, Katherine Ebury and Carol Wade.

Richard Barlow is an Associate Professor at Nanyang Technological University and a former Academic Director of the Trieste Joyce School. He is the author of The Celtic Unconscious: Joyce and Scottish Culture (Notre Dame University Press, 2017) and Modern Irish and Scottish Literature: Connections, Contrasts, Celticisms (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Sharae Deckard is Associate Professor in UCD’s School of English. Her most recent book is Tracking Capital: World-Systems, World-Ecology, World-Culture, co-authored with Michael Niblett and Stephen Shapiro (SUNY Press, 2024). Sharae has co-edited six special issues of journals, including: “Food, Energy, Climate: Irish Culture and World-Ecology” for Irish University Review and “Ireland in the World-System,” for Journal of World-Systems Research. With Treasa De Loughry, she is co-investigator of the ‘Cultural Imaginaries of Just Transition’ project at UCD.

Katherine Ebury is Senior Lecturer in Modern Literature at the University of Sheffield. She is the author of Modernism and Cosmology: Absurd Lights (2014) and Modern Literature and the Death Penalty, 1890–1950 (2021) and the co-editor of Joyce’s Nonfiction Writing: Outside his Jurisfiction (2018), Ethical Crossroads in Literary Modernism (2023) and Progressive Intertextual Practice in Modern and Contemporary Literature (2024).

Paul Fagan is Assistant Professor at LMU Munich, and the leader of the Irish Research Council project Celibacy in Irish Women’s Writing, 1860s–1950s. He is the co-editor of Irish Modernisms: Gaps, Conjectures, Possibilities (2021), Stage Irish: Performance, Identity, Cultural Circulation (2021) and five Flann O’Brien essay collections with Cork University Press.

Carol Wade is an artist and illustrator. Her project Art of the Wake is an imaginative exploration of Finnegans Wake.

Tom Walker is Associate Professor at the School of English, Trinity College Dublin. He is the author of Louis MacNeice and the Irish Poetry of His Time (2015) and the co-editor of The Edinburgh Companion to W.B. Yeats and the Arts (2024).

Culture Night/Oíche Chultúir 2024

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Free Exhibitions, Tours, and More

20 September 2024 at 6pm

The James Joyce Centre was proud host a special late evening to celebrate Culture Night/Oíche Chultúir 2024.

The James Joyce Centre is situated in a gorgeous 18th-century Georgian townhouse. On Friday, 20 September 2024 from 6 to 8pm, visitors explored our house and exhibitions, including:

  • Mamalujo: A history of the publication of Finnegans Wake.
  • Three art installations based on Ulysses, including “Ulysses: Illustrations” by Remi Rousseau.
  • Film screenings.
  • Ulysses VR: A virtual reality headset based on scenes from Ulysses.
  • The door from No. 7 Eccles Street, the home of Leopold and Molly Bloom in Ulysses.
  • Various manuscripts and materials from Joyce’s time.
  • The beautiful plasterwork by 18th-century stuccodore Michael Stapleton, a beautiful example of high-Georgian architecture.

The Joyce Centre also offered free guided tours of the house every half-hour from 6 to 8pm. Click this link to find out more.

Culture Night/Oíche Chultúir is sponsored by the Arts Council.

The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

small joys

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Performance

17 August 2024 at 6pm

The James Joyce Centre was proud to host small joys, a multidisciplinary work in progress, by Parallel Arts on Saturday, August 17th at 6pm.

small joys explores the concept of happiness found in the seemingly mundane aspects of daily life. This original piece, featuring Parvathi Jayaram (dancer), Leah Mullen (composer/performer), Mollie Wrafter (violin), and Robert Wheatley (cellist), integrates text, music, and choreography in a 40-minute performance. The work aims to encourage reflection on the simple pleasures often overlooked in our fast-paced world. Through movement, music, and lyrics, the audience will be invited to reconsider the joy found in everyday experiences.

Parallel Arts is a new duo comprised of Parvathi Jayaram and Leah Mullen. They have worked on projects prior to the duo’s founding. Both were on the creative/performance team of “da.da.da” which premiered in February 2024 at the Scene + Heard Festival. Since forming the duo, they have held workshops for performing artists, focusing on the unique multidisciplinary and multicultural artistic practices they specialise in.

As solo artists, both Jayaram and Mullen are well versed in their given fields. Jayaram follows Guru Padmashri Bharati Shivaji’s repertoire. With over a decade of experience in this sector, she is currently exploring facets of Mohiniyattam that intersects with theatre, and is deeply engaged in developing an inclusive pedagogy for Mohiniyattam in Ireland. She is a member of Dance Ireland and founder of Idhayā, Haven for Performing Arts.

Mullen holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s of Music. She has had her music performed across Europe and the United States, and is the winner of several composition and creative awards.

The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Blue Marble Storytellers 2nd International Writers Conference

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Conference

10 August 2024 at 1pm

Blue Marble Storytellers had its 2nd Annual International Writers Conference on Saturday, 10 August 2024 from 1 to 4.30pm at the James Joyce Centre. This conference was an excellent opportunity for both novice and expert writers to learn from their peers and to meet like-minded people in a funfilled, supportive environment.

Headlining the event was Anthony J. Quinn, Queens University Belfast lecturer on Creative Writing and winner of the Daily Mail’s Crime Novel of the Year. Other notable speakers included Jennifer McMahon, winner of the 2024 All-Ireland Scholarships Creative Writing Award (Public) and Kevin Curran, author of “Youth,” “Beatsploitation,” and “Citizens.”

Speakers discussed wide-ranging topics about the writer’s craft. They addressed the practical matters of writing as well, such as finding the time (and inspiration) to write and discovering avenues for publishing.

The programme can be viewed online at https://bluemarblestorytellers.com/dublin-ireland/.

ABOUT
Blue Marble Storytellers is a community of writers backed by Blue Marble Publishing (BMP), an independent publishing company with the goal of creating great stories. BMP strongly believes in encouraging writers to realize their potential. For further information, contact Russell Norman at [email protected].

The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

The Thomas Hardy Affair: Joyce, Hardy, and “Eveline”

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Lecture

31 July 2024 at 7pm

The James Joyce Centre was proud to host Prof. Martin Connolly (Tsurumi University) on Wednesday, 31 July 2024 at 7pm as he posited the question, “Did Joyce borrow from Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd to write his short story ‘Eveline’? “

James Joyce discovered Thomas Hardy on the shelves of the Capel Street lending library as early as 1896 at the tender age of fourteen. It was a great thrill for the young adolescent to read books which contained matter deemed racy by many of a Victorian mindset, people like ‘Old Grogan’, the prudish librarian there. Ten years later, in Trieste, he was still avidly reading the English author, and giving his brother Stanislaus a running commentary as he did so. Joyce liked to find fault with Hardy (and with English writers in general) but in his letters it is clear that Joyce enjoyed, and quietly admired, Hardy’s works. Joyce’s oeuvre is replete with echoes of almost everything he ever read, so finding traces of the work of an author he knew so well in one of his stories, especially one of his very first stories, should come as no surprise.

At first glance, “Eveline” and Far from the Madding Crowd do not seem very comparable. One is a very short and ostensibly simple tale of a 19 year-old Dublin girl who plans to elope with a sailor against the wishes of her father. The other is a pastoral epic novel involving complex and complicated romantic interactions between four main characters played out over years. Yet the crucial dramas in both stories revolve around the disruption caused when an outsider of dubious morality woos the central female protagonist. Eveline’s ‘close shave with disgrace and ruin’ (as described by Margot Norris) could equally be applied to the trouble which the lady at the centre of Hardy’s story finds herself in.

As Prof. Connolly’s careful exegesis showed, Hardy may have meant more to Joyce and his writing than Joyce ever cared to admit.

Born in Liverpool and raised in Belfast, Prof. Martin Connolly has resided in Japan since 1991. He is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin (BA) and Queen’s University (MA). He is a Professor of English Literature at Tsurumi University in Yokohama, Japan and teaches creative writing at Keio University. He has published on Medieval English Literature, James Joyce, and other Irish writers. He is also an active writer of poetry, short stories and novels, including Belfast, with Dinosaurs, 1979 (Shanway Press, 2022), Narrative Poems – Out of the Ordinary (Brimstone Press, 2024), and a book of original jazz photos Kind of Green (Snowchild Press, 2023).

The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

The Misadventures of Oliver Goldsmith

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Performance

4-6 July 2024 at 8pm

Antelope Productions in association with
The Goldsmith Festival presents

THE MISADVENTURES OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH

ADAPTED FROM WASHINGTON IRVING’S LIFE OF GOLDSMITH BY MICHAEL JAMES FORD

Starring Ben Wadell, Sinead Murphy
and Michael James Ford

Thursday, July 4th – Saturday, July 6th at 8.00pm

Runtime: 80 mins.

THE JAMES JOYCE CENTRE, 35 N GREAT GEORGE’S STREET, DUBLIN 1

To mark the 250th Anniversary of the death of Oliver Goldsmith, this new comic drama tells the story of the chaotic life of the great Irish writer. From his humble beginnings as the son of a poor parson in Co Longford, it charts his youthful adventures and travels and his gradual rise to prominence as one of the leading lights of the London literary scene.

Continually thwarted by his own impulsive and intemperate nature and often dogged by misfortune, Goldsmith’s life is a rollercoaster of success and failure, euphoria and despair. But for all his eccentricities, he was a man who inspired laughter and affection and enjoyed the friendship of some of the greatest artistic figures of the age.

The Misadventures of Oliver Goldsmith is a fast-paced tragicomedy that promises laughter, tears, songs, music and merriment. It was adapted from Washington Irving’s fond and colourful biography The Life of Oliver Goldsmith, first published in 1840. The show was commissioned by The Goldsmith Festival in Longford and enjoyed a triumphant launch last month in Goldsmith’s old stomping ground of Ballymahon.

Tickets are €20. Doors open at 7.30pm. To purchase tickets, click this link.

The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Screenshot

Hibsen@SmockAlley

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Film – 3 July 2024 at 12pm

A special screening of the music documentary Hibsen@SmockAlley by Canadian filmmaker Godfrey Jordan (BloomsdayRejoyce) was on Wednesday, 3 July 2024 at 12-2pm in the Volta Room. The film highlighted the Irish folk ensemble Hibsen in their creation and performance of original songs inspired by Joyce’s Dubliners. The film contained behind-the-scenes footage of musicians Gráinne Hunt and Jim Murphy as they performed in the Smock Alley Theatre as well as interviews with Frank McNally of the Irish Times, among others.

The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Bloomsday Festival 2024

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11-16 June 2024

This year we celebrated more than 120 years of Bloomsday at The Bloomsday Festival on 11-16 June 2024!

Bloomsday celebrates Thursday, 16 June 1904, the day immortalised in James Joyce’s 1922 novel Ulysses. The day is named after Leopold Bloom, one of the novel’s protagonist (the other being Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of Joyce’s 1916 novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Joyce’s literary alter ego). The novel follows Bloom’s life and thoughts — as well as those of Stephen and a host of other characters, real and fictional — from 8AM through to the early hours of the following morning.

Bloomsday celebrations come in many different forms, including readings, performances, walking tours, concerts, and even our famous Bloomsday breakfast (pork kidneys, anyone?). One noticeable feature is that people will dress up like the characters in Edwardian fashion. One of the hallmark dress items found on the streets of Dublin that day is the straw boater hat, a fashionable and iconic summer hat donned by many at the time — including none other than Joyce himself!

The James Joyce Centre has hosted the Bloomsday Festival since 1994. The Centre will host several events throughout the week. In addition, we work with several theatres, museums, libraries, art exhibits, collectives, and other institutions throughout Dublin to bring Joyce’s work to life.

The Bloomsday Festival is organised by the James Joyce Centre in partnership with Fáilte Ireland, Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Strings in the Earth and Air

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Bloomsday Festival 2024

16 June 2024 at 8pm

ANNA LIVIA CREATIVE in association with the James Joyce Centre brought you ‘Strings in the earth and air…’: The Musical World of James Joyce with Nicole Rourke & Benjamin Dwyer on 16 June 2024 at 8pm.

Join us in a celebration of Joyce’s fascination with music. With excerpts from the early poetry collection, Chamber Music, through the melancholic stories of Dubliners, to the ornate worlds of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, Rourke & Dwyer offer a captivating programme of Joyce’s musical obsessions.

The show includes excerpts of ‘raw sensuality’ from Nuala O’Connor’s celebrated book Nora: A Love Story of Nora Barnacle and James Joyce as well as the premiere of a new text by Nicole Rourke exploring the sensual worlds of Nora, Molly and Joyce.

Following the show, Director of the James Joyce Centre Darina Gallagher will host a Q&A with Nicole and Benjamin on the role of music in Joyce’s life and writing, and their creation of the programme. Wine will be served.

The Bloomsday Festival is organised by the James Joyce Centre in partnership with Fáilte Ireland, Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Counterparts & A Little Cloud

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Bloomsday Festival 2024

16 June 2024 at 5:30pm

The James Joyce Centre was proud to host a special Bloomsday showing of the Volta Theatre Company’s Counterparts & A Little Cloud, an adaptation of two short stories from Joyce’s debut work Dubliners, on Sunday, 16 June 2024 at 5:30pm

Joyce’s collection of short stories provides vivid ‘slices of life’ of early 20th century Dublin. Against the backdrop of a society in paralysis, a pair of Dublin lives are revealed in stark, sometimes brutal, scenes. In Counterparts, an ungainly, bad-tempered law clerk is determined to have a heavy night’s drinking, while in A Little Cloud, a sensitive soul is embittered by a meeting with an old university friend back from London. At once funny and tragic, relatable and disturbing, the stories are populated with an array of colourful characters who remain entirely contemporary, despite the bowler hats and Edwardian collars.

Performed by two actors in the iconic setting of the Joyce Centre’s Georgian drawing room, and featuring period music, this is an exquisite, intimate study of Joyce’s Dublin and its lives of quiet desperation.

Volta is a collaboration between classically-trained actors and musicians, combining theatre with cabaret, jazz and sketch comedy. Its remit is to bring classical theatre to a wide audience. Liam Hourican has worked with Shakespeare’s Globe, the Old Vic, and Second Age Theatre company and has written and performed sketch shows and comedy drama for Channel 4, RTE and the BBC. Jim Roche has starred in Normal People, Harry Wild, Blood 2, Vikings, Damo and Ivor, Killinaskully, The Mario Rosenstock Show, The Tudors, and iCandy. Musicians Feilimidh Nunan and Conor Sheil work with all the principal orchestras in Ireland and have collaborated in a wide variety of musical genres ranging from jazz to traditional music.

The Bloomsday Festival is organised by the James Joyce Centre in partnership with Fáilte Ireland, Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Bloomsday Readings and Songs

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Bloomsday Festival 2024

16 June 2024 at 3pm

It’s time to don that boater hat and join us for an afternoon of readings and songs from Ulysses as part of the Bloomsday Festival’s flagship event Readings and Songs at Meeting House Square in Temple Bar, 3pm – 6pm on 16 June 2024.

A long-standing and treasured tradition, this afternoon of songs, readings and performances from Ulysses in the heart of the city is an essential part of the Bloomsday experience.

This year, we have actor and writer Tara Flynn at the helm in Temple Bar, to introduce a fabulously chaotic cast of noted Irish actors, musicians, pundits and everyone in between, who will read extracts from Ulysses. The readings will bring to life Joyce’s immortal words, from his description of Dublin’s “snotgreen sea”, to Molly Bloom’s famous “yes”.

This year’s esteemed readers are acclaimed actors Nora-Jane Noone, Gerry O’Brien,  Eimear Keating, Geraldine McAlinden, Rachel Wren, Margaret McAuliffe, Steve Hartland, David Mulcahy, Sinead Murphy, and Mary Murray and writers Conner Habib and Dermot Bolger. The event will also feature the celebrated singer-songwriter David Keenan and the comedic brilliance of  Katherine Lynch and Goblins, Goblins, Goblins.

Musicians Bryan Mullen, Brian Gilligan and Camille O’Sullivan will grace the stage, bringing the music that inspired Joyce back to life. The celebrations will culminate with a reading by beloved Irish author Marian Keyes, as she breathes life into Molly Bloom’s legendary “Yes.”

*This is an outdoor event (the Meeting House Square Umbrellas are currently undergoing maintenance) so rain or shine please dress for the weather.

The running order is as follows:
1. Telemachus— Eimear Keating
2. Nestor— Dermot Bolger
3.Proteus— David Keenan
4. Calypso— Katherine Lynch
5. Lotus Eaters — Camille O’Sullivan
6. Hades— Conner Habib
7. Aelous — Margaret Mc Auliffe
8. Lestrygonians— Geraldine McAlinden
9. Scylla and Charybdis — David Mulcahy
10. Wandering Rocks— Brian Gilligan
11.  Sirens— Mary Murray
12. Cyclops— Gerry O’Brien
13. Nausicaa— Steve Hartland
14. Oxen of the Sun— Sinead Murphy
15. Circe— Goblins, Goblins, Goblins
16. Eumaeus— Rachel Wren
17. Ithaca—  Nora-Jane Noone
18. Penelope— Marian Keyes

The Bloomsday Festival is organised by the James Joyce Centre in partnership with Fáilte Ireland, Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Flowers of Sleep

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Bloomsday Festival 2024

13 June 2024 at 6:30pm

“Flowers of Sleep”: Bring Paddy Dignan from Sandymount to Glasnevin by Dr. Patrick Callan

The funeral of Paddy Dignam in James Joyce’s Ulysses serves as the pivotal event of the ‘Hades’ episode. Dignam’s funeral cavalcade leaves his home in Sandymount at 11 a.m. on 16 June 1904, taking him across the city to Glasnevin Cemetery. His death and interment allowed Joyce the freedom to consider many of the conventions, rituals and superstitions associated with death and burial in Dublin. Drawing on Ulysses as well as contemporary sources, Dr. Patrick Callan will look at a variety of aspects relating to the domestic and public treatment of the dead body in Dublin, including the practice of the wake, and the traditional offerings of flowers.

Dr. Callan is a Dublin historian and a Visiting Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. His book Death in Dublin during the Era of James Joyce’s Ulysses will be published by Routledge.

The Bloomsday Festival is organised by the James Joyce Centre in partnership with Fáilte Ireland, Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Poems Ago

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Bloomsday Festival 2024

13 June 2024 at 1pm

The James Joyce Centre was proud to present a lunchtime performance by Poems Ago on Thursday, June 13th at 1pm for the Bloomsday Festival. Poems Ago, the Irish-Dutch musical duo Juliana Hahn and Remco Jacobs, compose and perform music to Irish poetry and play original songs. In this concert, they performed guitar and violin music set to James Joyce’s Chamber Music (1906) as well as poetry by W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, and contemporary Irish poets. The concert conincides with Yeats’ birthday.

The Bloomsday Festival is organised by the James Joyce Centre in partnership with Fáilte Ireland, Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Bloomsday Afternoon Tea Bus Tour

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Bloomsday Festival 2024

16 June 2024 at 3:30pm

The James Joyce Centre was proud to partner with Vintage Tea Trips for a special Bloomsday afternoon tea celebrating all things Dublin and James Joyce! Sip on some delicious tea and delicacies while diving into the world of Ulysses and exploring the vibrant city that inspired it on this bus tour on Sunday, 16 June 2024 at 3:30pm.

Whether you are a diehard fan or just curious about this literary masterpiece, this event is perfect for all. Get ready for a fun and enlightening experience that will leave you feeling like a true Dubliner.

Afternoon tea is a much-cherished tea-related ritual from the early 1840s that continued well into the Edwardian era, when Ulysses is set. It was a mini-meal to fill the gap between lunch and dinner and was composed of scones with clotted cream and jam, delicately cut sandwiches, sweets and delicious cakes. In this tour, you may choose from a traditional, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy free or vegan afternoon tea.

Savour all your favourites — freshly made sandwiches, desserts, cakes, and pastries — as your bus travels through downtown Dublin. Pass sights such as Stephen’s Green, Christ Church, Trinity College, St. Stephen’s Green, Wood Quay, O’Connell Street, Phoenix Park, and the grand buildings of Georgian Dublin.

Our tour guide will point out the varoius references of these places in Ulysses. Feel free to dress up in your finest Edwardian garb as you listen to passages of and explanations of Joyce’s classic novel.

There are many Joycean tours of Dublin, but none of them are quite as comfortable and delicious as this one!

Please note:

  • The tour starts at 3:30pm. The bus is on a strict timetable and can not wait for latecomers. As such, please make arrangements to arrive at least 15 minutes prior to the scheduled departure.
  • The pick-up location is 20-22 St. Stephen’s Green North, Dublin 2, across the road from Stephen Court. The tour will end at St. Stephen’s Green.
  • The tour lasts 70-80 minutes, depending on the traffic.
  • Bus seating is assigned on a first-booked, first-served basis, beginning with filling the upper deck first and then the lower deck. Guests may be required to share a table. For group seating and other options, please email or call the VVT team 72 hours in advance.
  • Any allergies, specific dietary requirements or changes to requirements must be confirmed over email or by phone with the VTT team 72 hours in advance. If the allergy can’t be facilitated, the VVT team will be in contact. For a list of allergens, click this link.
  • For FAQs, click this link.

For more information about Vintage Tea Tours (including full Terms & Conditions), please visit www.vintageteatrips.ie.

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 01 255 1777

The Bloomsday Festival is organised by the James Joyce Centre in partnership with Fáilte Ireland, Dublin

Secret Space

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Performance

7 June 2024 at 8:30pm

AnnaLiviaCreative presented the CD launch and world premiere of Secret Space, a one-hour performance of poetry by American poet Alison Grace Koehler and improvised guitar by Benjamin Dwyer with photographic images by Tony Carragher, on Friday, 7 June 2024 at 8:30pm.

The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Finnegans Wakeshop

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Bloomsday Festival 2024

12 June 2024 at 1pm

Image from Art of the Wake by Carol Wade

The James Joyce Centre was pleased to present a unique experience at the Finnegans Wakeshop during the Bloomsday Festival.

Carol Wade of Art of the Wake and Des Gunning of Joyceborough looked back at ‘FW85,’ the 85th anniversary of the publication of Finnegans Wake and a headsup on plans to mark ‘Mamalujo 101’ in 2025. Des Gunning has been running the Joyceborough Finnegans Wake Reading Group for fifteen years and Carol Wade has been illustrating the Wake for as long. This year, they and others combined forces for the first time to mark the occassion of FW85.

In Finnegans Wakeshop, they reflected on that experience and look ahead to the coming 15 years, which will bring us to FW100. A copiously-illustrated with live performance of the text and plenty of audience participation. A short film, ‘On the Calends of Mars,’ will be screened.

A Blooming Great Day with Úna Woods

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Bloomsday Festival 2024

16 June 2024 at 1pm

It seems like just another ordinary day for Rosie and her grandad. But as soon as they step outside, they find themselves on a blooming great adventure around Dublin on the 16th of June, 1904!

The James Joyce Centre presented A Blooming Great Day with Úna Woods, children’s event of fun, mischief, and Joyce! Author and illustrator Úna Woods will read from her new children’s book A Blooming Great Day (The O’Brien Press) and lead a drawing workshop on Bloomsday (June 16th) at 2pm. The children will draw scenes from the book and design their own hats! This is a great way for children to be introduced to Joyce and to partake in Dublin’s great literary tradition.

Úna Woods is a children’s book illustrator and author who lives in Dublin with her husband and two children and their ginger cat. Her previous books include Have You Seen the Dublin Vampire? and A Spooktacular Place to Be, both published by The O’Brien Press. Úna loves working with bright colours and patterns. She also loves reading and running.

The Bloomsday Festival is organised by the James Joyce Centre in partnership with Fáilte Ireland, Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Breathe and Bloom

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Bloomsday Festival 2024

16 June 2024 at 11am

Happenings Ireland in partnership with the James Joyce Centre was proud to present Breathe and Bloom, a truly unique Bloomsday celebration of health, wellness, and yoga (yes, really!) on Sunday, June 16th at 11am in Brighton Square.

James Joyce was born in 1882 at 41 Brighton Square. What better way to celebrate Bloomsday than by gathering where it all began! Breathe and Bloom is a unique blend of traditional Bloomsday celebrations and wellness exercises.

Ulysses is not often thought about in terms of health and fitness but the novel provides a glimpse into the burgeoning wellness movement that would develop extensively in the 20th century. Leopold Bloom is conscious of his body and the need to maintain it through exercise and diet, even if he is not so vigilant in doing so! “Got up wrong side of the bed,” he thinks to himself. “Must begin again those Sandow’s exercises.” His wife, Molly, also has this on her mind: “I must do a few breathing exercises[.] I wonder is that antifat any good might overdo it.” The event will show this often-overlooked facet of Joyce’s work by combining a class by Yoga in the Park with a talk about health and fitness in Joyce’s work as well as old-fashioned readings and songs!

The event will start with Yoga in the Park’s regularly-scheduled class with Jo Collins from 11am to 12pm. It will then be followed by a half-hour talk about fitness, wellness and Joyce by Dr. Conor Heffernan, Lecturer in Sport Sociology at Ulster University. This talk will feature demonstrations of gentle stretching, dumbbell raising and deep breathing by Jo Collins. Audience participation is encouraged but not mandatory. After the talk, the park will host music and readings of Ulysses. The audience is welcome to bring food and drink to make a nice picnic!

Schedule:
11-12: Happenings Yoga’s Yoga in the Park class with Jo Collins.
12-12:30: Talk and yoga demonstration by Dr. Conor Heffernan and Jo Collins about fitness, mindfullness, and yoga in Ulysses.
12:30-1:30: Music and readings.

Many thanks to the residents of Brighton Square for hosting the event.

The Bloomsday Festival is organised by the James Joyce Centre in partnership with Fáilte Ireland, Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and

Dubliners by Hibsen

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Bloomsday Festival 2024

11 June 2024 at 7:30pm

The James Joyce Centre was delighted to host a unique musical interpretation of James Joyce’s Dubliners on Tuesday, 11 June 2024 at 7:30pm. Irish folk ensemble Hibsen payed homage to Joyce with performances of their critically acclaimed album “The Stern Task of Living.” The album is a collection of 15 songs, one for each short story in Dubliners. Through their original music and lyrics, Hibsen brings the stories to life.

For lovers of Joyce, these concerts provided a unique perspective on Dubliners. For those not familiar with the stories, the performances provided an ideal opportunity to get to know them in an intimate surrounding.

“The arrangements . . . and lyrics come from the pen of people who have spent a lot of time in Joyce’s world.” John Meagher, Irish Independent

“One might almost sense the spirit of Joyce himself strolling through these tracks. Better still, you don’t have to know the stories to savour this as a musical experience in its own right.” Jackie Hayden, Hot Press Magazine

Hibsen are a contemporary folk music ensemble formed by Irish artists Jim Murphy and Gráinne Hunt. They released their debut album “The Stern Task of Living” on 26 May 2023. The album was inspired by the book of short stories Dubliners by James Joyce and it comprises 15 songs, one for each short story. It was launched at Bloomsday Festival 2023 and it has received critical acclaim. Some of the songs from the album received extensive national and regional radio play with one of the songs (Eveline) reaching number 2 on the RTE Radio 1 Airplay Chart. The Stern Task of Living was also selected as a featured album on RTE Lyric FM and on BBC Radio Ulster.

Bloomsday Festival 2024 Launch & Reception

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Bloomsday Festival 2024

11 June 2024 at 6pm

On Tuesday, June 11th at 6pm the formal launch of this year’s Bloomsday Festival took place. The Bloomsday Festival was in full-swing this year with close to one-hundred separate events on June 11th-16th throughout Dublin. Our reception featured talks and readings (and some wine!) and celebrated another year of Bloomsday celebrations. We were joined by British artist Jo Hamill as she introduced our new art exhibition Gutter Words. French artist Rémi Rousseau was also on hand as he introduced his new art exhibition Ulysses: Illustrations. Join festival goers around Dublin and the world as we kick off this extraordinary time of the year!

The Bloomsday Festival is organised by the James Joyce Centre in partnership with Fáilte Ireland, Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Midday Mumming Madness

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Bloomsday Festival 2024

16 June 2024 at 12pm

On Bloomsday, Sunday June 16th at 12pm The James Joyce Centre hosted some ‘midday mumming madness’ as the extraordinary talent of the Fingal Mummers explored mummery in Ulysses and other works of James Joyce in their production of Everyman His Own Wife.

Throughout Ulysses, Buck Mulligan calls Stephen “A lovely mummer!”; “Kinch, the loveliest mummer of them all!”; “O, you peerless mummer!” Mulligan declares that “I have conceived a play for the mummers” and launches into the title page of a lewd skit. The James Joyce Centre will be truly transformed as we watch the Fingal Mummers celebrate Bloomsday with comedy, music, mischief and song. Come witness this truly unique Irish tradition during this truly unique Irish festival.

The Bloomsday Festival is organised by the James Joyce Centre in partnership with the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Fáilte Ireland, and Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.

Modality of the Visible: Ulysses VR Premiere

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Bloomsday Festival 2024

11 June 2024 at 3pm

The James Joyce Centre was pleased to premiere the highly anticipated new exhibition Modality of the Visible: Ulysses VR for the Bloomsday Festival. Step into the world of James Joyce’s masterpiece like never before with cutting-edge virtual reality technology. Immerse yourself in the sights and sounds of Dublin as you follow in the footsteps of Leopold Bloom.

Modality of the Visible: Ulysses VR is an immersive VR project that takes you on a journey through the Dublin of 1904 so beautifully described in Joyce’s novel. The project aims to educate, entertain, and familiarise viewers with Joyce’s text in an interactive and visual way. Using state-of-the-art VR headset technology, you will be able to mount the gunrest of the Martello Tower, walk along Eccles Street, hang around the gentlemen at Barney Kiernan’s, and explore other settings of Ulysses. The purpose of this project is to merge the world of literature with an increasingly technological world. With an experimental design approach, Ulysses VR offers a novel understanding of Joyce’s writing, creating a unique learning experience in an immersive virtual environment.

The exhibition will be on permanent display at the James Joyce Centre. The project was developed by a team of Greek programmers and academics in collaboration with the University of Patras. We will be joined by Thanos Makris, the creator and project coordinator of Ulysses VR, and Christina Vassilaki, a project officer. Prof. Ahuvia Kahane (Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin) will deliver a talk about the classical and contemporary Greek references in Ulysses. The attendees, of course, will be welcome to try out the headset for themselves!

Ulysses VR Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HqXBAT7AI8

The Bloomsday Festival is organised by the James Joyce Centre in partnership with the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Fáilte Ireland, and Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.