For the second instalment in our Spring / Summer 2019 Lecture Series, it was a pleasure to welcome Pat Callan to the James Joyce Centre to deliver his talk on Reuben J Dodd Junior, a Dublin-based solicitor, and one of the many real Dubliners who appeared in Joyce’s Ulysses.
Pat’s fascinating talk detailed the legal proceedings undertaken by Dodd after an adaptation of the ‘Hades’ episode of Ulysses was broadcast in June 1954. Dodd claimed that the broadcast suggested that he was a moneylender, and that he had tried to commit suicide (a criminal action in Ireland in 1904 as well as in 1954). Dr. Callan outlined the representations of the Dodds in Ulysses and considered the reception of Joyce in Dublin in the 1950s as well as the BBC’s support for Joyce. He explored these developing relationships to Joyce in terms of the growing tourist awareness of Dublin as Joyce’s city.
Dr. Patrick Callan is a historian of early twentieth century Dublin and Ireland. His Joyce research focuses on representations of Dublin in Ulysses, and the broadcasting of Joyce’s work on the BBC. He is a visiting research fellow in the Centre for Contemporary Irish History at Trinity College Dublin.