Book Launch

26 June 2025 at 6.30pm

The James Joyce Centre was pleased to host the launch of James Joyce, Rural Ireland and Modernity: Beyond the Pale (Edinburgh University Press, 2025), the first book-length study to consider Joyce’s portrayal of rural Ireland across his oeuvre on Thursday, 26 June 2025 at 6.30pm. Author Dr. Niall Ó Cuileagáin (Maynooth University) was joined by Prof. Anne Fogarty (UCD).

James Joyce, Rural Ireland, and Modernity: Beyond the Pale offers a fundamental reappraisal of the dominant Dublin-centric readings of James Joyce by delving into his depiction of rural Ireland. Taking its title from ‘the Pale’, the area around Dublin that historically was most subject to British influence, this book shows how Joyce, often considered the urban modernist par excellence, in fact went far beyond this particular pale in his work.

Whether it be through his schooldays in Clongowes, his youthful journeys to Mullingar and Cork, or his trips west to visit Nora Barnacle’s family in Galway, Joyce was no stranger to life beyond Dublin. At a time when rural Ireland was being valorised by Revivalists, Joyce’s fiction and journalism offered unique and complex perspectives on matters relating to rural modernity, provincialism, the Irish peasantry, and the semi-rural areas around Dublin.

This work takes its place alongside other recent criticism relating to ‘alternative modernities’ by foregrounding rurality within discussions of modernity. By drawing on theories relating to postcolonialism, ecocriticism and cultural geography, it is an inherently interdisciplinary study.

Written in a clear, engaging style, this book will be a fascinating read for all those who, like Gabriel Conroy, feel that the time has come to set out on a Joycean journey westward.

Dr. Niall Ó Cuileagáin is from Co. Clare and is currently a Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow at Maynooth University. His research and reviews have been published in James Joyce in Italy, the Dublin James Joyce Journal, the Review of Irish Studies in Europe, and the Irish University Review.

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