The James Joyce Centre on Friday, December 6th at 6.30pm held a special presentation of a fascinating social study entitled Araby House, James Joyce and all the Neighbours on North Richmond Street, Dublin, 1820-1998 by Dr. Michael Quinn.
Since the 1800s, Araby House and North Richmond Street have been part of the built heritage of Dublin’s characterful north inner city neighbourhood. They have also been home to generations of citizens — some famous, many forgotten. Michael’s book demonstrates why out of all the streets that the Joyce family lived on, North Richmond Street and its environs commands the most attention in his great novels and short stories. At the same time, the study rescues from the dusty records of history dozens of other gallant women, men and children who lived, worked and played here.
Michael graduated from Maynooth University with a B.A. degree in local studies and a Ph.D for an international relations topic. In this work he has deployed his skills as a historian to investigate the historical context and semi-autobiographical nature of the short story ‘Araby‘ in Joyce’s Dubliners, and in related aspects of Ulysses. Michael also leads, with fellow Joycean Billy Fitzpatrick, the popular Fr. John Conmee, S.J. Walking Tour every year on Bloomsday.
The book was first published privately during the Covid-19 pandemic by the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU), which is headquartered in none other than Araby House, and where Michael worked for a number of years prior to his retirement. The book has now been republished by the James Joyce Centre. The launch featured guest speakers Brian Trench and Brid O’Brien, the Director of the INOU.
At €15 per copy (2 for €25), it offers the perfect Christmas gift for Joyceans and all those with an interest in Dublin’s local history. Copies are also available for purchase in our gift shop and for shipping worldwide.
Profilesis an annual literary and vis-arts journal dedicated to portraiture in prose and visual art. The James Joyce Centre was delighted to celebrate the launch of Issue 3 of Profiles with readings and discussions from contributors on Saturday, November 30th at 6.30pm. Writers Tom Roseingrave (Gracias a la vida) and Jordan Lillis (The Oyster Pearl) and artists Éadaoin Glynn (Self Portrait with Estrogen Patch 1 (Bathroom Mirror Selfie) and Philip Rainey (The Lightness of Being Seen But Not Shown #1) were in conversation with editors Clare Healy and Sarah Sturzel.
The launch also included an exhibition featuring works by Aisling Dunne, Éadaoin Glynn, Thom Kofoed, Marie Le Men, Salvatore of Lucan, Juliette Morrison, Glenn Quigley and Philip Rainey.
Profiles is sponsored by Dublin City Council and Dublin: UNESCO City of Literature. The launch event is kindly sponsored by Hope Beer.
Speakers
Éadaoin Glynn is a Cork-based painter who studied literature. She explores ideas of intimacy, memory and hidden female narratives in her work. Her work has been exhibited in the UK, USA and extensively in Ireland. In 2023, she founded The Warrior Artist Podcast as a resource for visual artists. Instagram: @eadaoin_glynn Web: eadaoinglynn.com
Jordan Lillis was runner-up in the Wild Atlantic Words short story competition and longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize (both 2021). She is currently undergoing a PhD in Creative Writing in UCC, as part of which she hopes to publish a collection of short stories. She lives in Galway.
Philip Rainey is a visual artist based in Northern Ireland. Their practice incorporates lens-based art alongside text and installation. They are interested in how art can be encountered as a spatial and sensory experience. Their work has been exhibited in Flax Art Studios; Arcade Studios and Pollen Studios. Instagram philip_rainey
Tom Roseingrave (he/they) is a Dubliner. His writing has appeared in The Stinging Fly (2022 & 2024), Banshee, Profiles, The Honest Ulsterman, and elsewhere. In 2024, Tom was awarded a place on the Irish Writers’ Centre National Mentoring Programme. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of Frustrated Writers’ Group.
Exhibitors
Aisling Dunne is a multi-disciplinary artist from North County Dublin and has a BA (Hons) Fine Art Sculpture from NCAD. She was shortlisted for the Zurich Portrait Prize 2023. She has exhibited widely and is supported by the Arts Council and Fingal Arts Office.
Thom Kofoed studied Fine Art at the University of Brighton, graduating in 2009. He is predominantly a portrait artist with an obsessive preoccupation with camp pop culture. His hope is that with time the work can stop being a desperate yearning for what’s gone and start being a celebration of it instead.
Marie Le Men is a visual artist based in Dublin. She loves watercolour for its lightness and translucent quality. Originally from France, she is a self-taught artist inspired by photography, books and cinema. Her work is mainly figurative and revolves around empathy and emancipation from norms. She was shortlisted for the Zurich Portrait Prize 2023.
Salvatore of Lucan‘s paintings attempt to create expansive domestic scenes where realism meets the uncanny and the familiar broaches the magical. His recent solo exhibitions include Fancy Situations, Kevin Kavanagh (2024), Dead Present, Kevin Kavanagh (2022) and Melodrama, Hang Tough Contemporary (2021). He was the winner of the National Gallery of Ireland’s Portrait Prize in 2021.
Juliette Morrison is a multidisciplinary artist based in London. At the heart of her creative exploration lies the practice of autoethnography – this involves using self-reflection and photography to explore anecdotal and personal experience. This introspective journey connects the individual experience to broader cultural and social contexts.
Glenn Quigley is an author and artist originally from Tallaght in Dublin, and now living in Lisburn with his husband. His work in both print and paint celebrates the gay bear subculture.
The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
Cover art: ‘The Lightness of Being Seen But Not Shown #1’, oil pastel, by Philip Rainey.
The James Joyce Centre hosted a special musical performance from Ruby Mae and Ewan Shiels on Friday, 29 November 2024 at 7.30pm.
Ruby Mae Shiels and her father Ewan have been playing music together professionally since she joined the family band in her early teens, initially as guitarist and eventually as multi-instrumentalist and harmony vocalist. The recent format as a duo came about as a means to showcase their repertoire of original compositions for fretted instruments as well as renditions of pieces from the myriad genres that have influenced them. Currently preparing their first album of original tunes as a two-piece, live audiences can expect a dynamic visceral performance from these seasoned veterans of the stage with lashings of virtuosity, humour and twisted poetry, not to mention the hot moves and crowd participation!
Ruby Mae Shiels: After a typically chaotic show business upbringing, Ruby began playing concerts with her parents while barely into her teens. Her prodigious skills as a multi-instrumentalist and singer/performer soon earned her an international reputation. She currently can be heard/seen in The Shiels (the family trio with her parents), The Village Vandals (the experimental rural hip hop duo) and as a solo performer.
Ewan Shiels: Began performing at 10 years as the straight man in his older brother’s Punch & Judy Show. He has since worked in theatre, films and television both as actor and composer as well as numerous bizarre music formations.
The James Joyce Centre was pleased to host the launch of The Joyce of Everyday Life (Bucknell University Press, 2024), a new book about the ordinary, extraordinary and everything in between in Joyce’s work.
On Tuesday, 19 November 2024 at 6.30pm, author Prof. Vicki Mahaffey (Urbana-Champaign) joined us for a conversation with fellow Joyce scholars Prof. Anne Fogarty (UCD) and Prof. Sam Slote (TCD), followed by a musical performance by Darina Gallagher, Director of the James Joyce Centre.
Part of James Joyce’s genius was his ability to find the poetry in everyday life. For Joyce, even a simple object like a table becomes magical, “a board that was of the birchwood of Finlandy and it was upheld by four dwarfmen of that country but they durst not move more for enchantment.” How might we learn to regain some of the child-like play with language and sense of delight in the ordinary that comes so naturally to Joyce?
The Joyce of Everyday Life teaches us how to interpret seemingly mundane objects and encounters with openness and active curiosity in order to attain greater self-understanding and a fuller appreciation of others. Through a close examination of Joyce’s joyous, musical prose, it shows how language provides us with the means to revitalize daily experience and social interactions across a huge, diverse, everchanging world.
Prof. Mahaffey demonstrates how his writing might prompt us to engage in a different kind of reading, treating words and fiction as tools for expanding the boundaries of the self with humor and feeling. A book for everyone who loves language, The Joyce of Everyday Life is a lyrical romp through quotidian existence.
The event was followed by a wine reception.
Vicki Mahaffey is a professor emerita at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient and the author or editor of several books, including Collaborative Dubliners: Joyce in Dialogue, Modernist Literature: Challenging Fictions, and States of Desire: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce,and the Irish Experiment.
The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
The James Joyce Centre was proud to host once again a performance of the Volta Theatre Company’s Counterparts & A Little Cloud, an adaptation of two short stories from Joyce’s debut work Dubliners, on Thursday and Friday, 14 and 15 November 2024 at 7.30pm.
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 James Joyce Centre along with Poetry Ireland and IMRAM were proud to present the launch of Máire Mhac an tSaoi’s Amhráin Amhairgin, An Chailleach Bhéarra, agus Amhra Choilm Cille: Three Medieval Irish poems into Contemporary Irish. The editor of the book, Louis de Paor, read a selection of passages along with songs from Síle Denvir.
‘Tá údarás agus uaisleacht in uachtar sna dánta seo… mar atá sa chuid is fearr dá cuid dánta féin, an teanga á feacadh agus á lúbadh i gcúrsaí friotail agus comhréire agus í ag cruthú uair amháin eile gur uirlis lánacmhainneach í don té atá inniúil ar í a ionramháil mar is cóir…tá cúis eile againn a bheith buíoch go raibh Máire Mhac an tSaoi ag obair chomh fada is chomh flaithiúil sin inár measc.’ – Louis de Paor
The James Joyce Centre was proud to offer once again its popular six-week Dear, Dirty Dublinerscourse this past autumn!
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 20th century. Joyce 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 guided participates through the stories in great detail. Particular focus was paided to issues of gender, poverty, colonialism, nationalism, globalization, the Catholic Church, and sexuality, just to name a few. The course also went over its troubled publication history as well as its enduring legacy and adaptations, such as John Huston’s 1987 film The Dead.
The characters in the 15 stories vary in many ways but one quality they all have in common is paralysis: not physical paralysis per se, but rather emotional, financial, familial, and spiritual. His struggle to get the book published (it took more than seven years) would shape Joyce as a young artist: a man who challenged the literary and cultural establishments both in and outside of Ireland.
The course was led by Dr. Josh Q. Newman, an academic and assistant at the Centre. The course consisted of readings, group discussions, presentations, and guest lectures. Students were provided with contextual and scholarly materials via Moodle. You do not have to be an academic or so familiar with Joyce’s work to enjoy the class!
Each session was recorded and available for view on Moodle. Recordings are done with the consent of the attendee in accordance with GDRP. Please email[email protected] for more information.
The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
The James Joyce Centre was proud to host the book lauch of Classroom Hero by David Graham on Tuesday, 5 November 2024 at 6.30pm.
Classroom Hero is the story of one boy’s quest to fit in – in a world that makes him stand out. Fionn is often made to sit on his own at school, but he does not understand why. Now in second class, he spends more time alone than ever. He is the only pupil who is not making his communion. A school visitor calls him a ‘classroom hero’, and everything seems to make sense. When Fionn sees his classmate Sophie being bullied, he comes to her rescue and a close friendship is born. But he is still not treated the same as the other children.
“Tender, engaging and insightful.” Fintan O’Toole, The Irish Times
David Graham is a parent and campaigner for equality in Irish education. He has written about the controversial role of religion in schools across the print and online media for many years and is a regular guest on the topic on Irish radio. He has advocated tirelessly in favour of a truly inclusive education system that treats all children with equal respect, regardless of their faith or belief background. Classroom Hero offers a child’s-eye view of the pervasive impact of religious patronage on Irish schools, and of the experience of ‘opting out’.
Fable Family Festival presented an immersive experience through authentic storytelling as young and old were invited to re-connect with their storytelling roots. Fable celebrates the power of storytelling, inspiring the next generation of seanchaí by re-imagining the traditional storytelling experience in ambitious and imaginative ways that engage young and curious audiences.
On Sunday, 3 November 2024, Fable hosted a series of workshops, mythic tales, and songs in the James Joyce Centre.
1pm: WHAT’S YOUR TALL TALE WITH STORYTELLER ALAN NOLAN
Do you have a story you want to bring to life?
This workshop aimed to reconnect children with their storytelling roots inspire the next generation of seanchaí by teaching them about the Irish tradition of storytelling and working to bring tall tales to life with little legends.
Children’s author Alan Nolan took children on a magical journey through the art of storytelling using imagery and words as ancient mythology were given a contemporary new twist.
Alan Nolan was awarded the 2024 Children’s Books Ireland Annual Award for his outstanding contribution to children’s books. Alan grew up in Windy Arbour, Dublin and now lives in Bray, Co. Wicklow with his wife and three children. Alan is the author of the Molly Malone and Bram Stoker series. He is also the author and illustrator of Fintan’s Fifteen, Conor’s Caveman and the Sam Hannigan series, and is the illustrator of Animal Crackers: Fantastic Facts About Your Favourite Animals, written by Sarah Webb. Alan runs illustration and writing workshops for children, and you may see him lugging his drawing board and pencils around your school or local library.
2:30pm: CELEBRATE OUR HEROES THROUGH ART WITH KIKI NA ART
What are legends without heroes? Those characters that have gone before us but are eternal.
Heroes are made through their deeds but live on through the tales we tell.
Acclaimed Dublin based artist Kiki Na Art as lead a legendary workshop for children.
As her own handcrafted jewellery and artwork has demonstrated, Kiki was all about being proud of our heroes, so who better than to invite children to tell stories and use their imagination to create their own artworks based upon inspirational people in their lives. Characters of old in Irish folklore or family members and friends who have changed the world for the better, heroes young and old, past and present were celebrated in a kaleidoscope of colour of the page.
Dublin born artist Ciarna Pham, who works under the name Kiki Na Art is the creator of unique pieces of handcrafted jewellery which have been gaining quite a bit of attention in recent times. The idea behind the jewellery is to allow people to wear and show their own modern icons, ranging from musical icons such as Bowie, artists such as Frida Kahlo, political figures, writers, actors, vintage images and even old photos. This year, Fable, with thanks to The Arts Council, commissioned Kiki to bring some of the iconic creatures mythical Irish legends to life.
4pm: STORIES & SONGS WITH WREN DENNEHY AND SHAUNA CAFFREY
Featuring actor, singer and storyteller Wren Dennehy and musicologist Shauna Caffrey.
“Stories & Songs” retold Irish myths and legends for young ears, our seanchaís brought to life colourful tales of the fearsome Caorthannach (a monstrous dragon monster) and the heroic Cú Chulainn. Children sang along to the tale of Molly Malone and made the sound effects as we wemt on a “Puca Hunt.”
The James Joyce Centre was proud to host a literary gathering with the Portuguese writer Teolinda Gersão on the subject of her book The Word Tree on Tuesday, 29 October 2024 at 6.30pm. The event was organised by the Embassy of Portugal to Ireland in partnership with Literature Ireland. It was moderated by the Director of Literature Ireland Sinéad Mac Aodha.
“The Word Tree is a portrait of Lourenço Marques, before and during the colonial war. It is a book about the fascination of Africa and African culture, about the mix and clash of cultures and also a disturbing story about paradise that turns into a nightmare. A magical book about childhood, to which one cannot return, except through the miracle of literature.” (Porto Editora)
Margaret Jull Costa’s translation was awarded the Calouste Gulbenkian Portuguese Translation Prize for 2012.
Teolinda Gersão is the author of 12 novels and short-story collections, which have been translated into various languages. Her work has brought her many prizes, including the Pen Club Prize for best novel (twice), the Literature Prize from the International Critics’ Literary Association and the Grand Prix for Novel and Short-Story from the Portuguese Writers´ Association. The Word Tree is the first of her novels to be published in English.
Photo: Homem Cardoso
This year’s edition of the EUNIC European Book Club series, entitled “Europe!”, will showcase the work of eight European authors from Poland, Italy, Romania, Ireland, Estonia, Portugal, Slovenia and France. For more information please visit the following webpage: https://www.facebook.com/EUNICireland/
The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
Following on from the success of their tour around James Joyce’s Ulysses, Janet Moran and Ronan Guilfoyle joined forces again, this time to explore the intricacies of Joyce’s final novel Finnegan’s Wake, via ‘Earwicker’s Dream’ — an entertaining and fascinating journey through this classic book via jazz and spoken word on Wednesday, 16 October 2024 at 1pm. Janet is an award-winning actor and playwright, and Ronan is one of Ireland’s best-known jazz musicians, with an international career spanning more than forty years. Earwicker’s Dream was a concert piece that unites spoken word, jazz composition and improvisation, and explores the central characters in the book.
In Earwicker’s Dream Workshop, Janet and Ronan discussed how they put the project together, how they made the choices on choosing text, how the music interacts with the spoken word, and how the improvisation contained in the music allows for real-time interaction between Joyce’s prose and creative music. The workshop included live demonstrations of how the text and music work together.
The full concert piece will be performed at the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, County Wicklow, on Thursday 24th of October.
The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
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.
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.
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.
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 ContemporaryLiterature (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).
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 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 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
This year we celebrated more than 120 years of Bloomsday atThe 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.
ANNA LIVIA CREATIVE in association with the James Joyce Centre brought you ‘Strings in the earth and air…’: The Musical World of James Joycewith 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.
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.
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.
