Tag: Book launch

Book Launch by Michael Quinn

6 December 2024 at 6.30pm

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.

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

Book Launch

19 November 2024 at 6.30pm

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.

Book Launch

7 November 2024 at 6:30pm

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 is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Book Launch

5 November 2024 at 6.30pm

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’.

For online sales and other information, see www.classroomhero.ie.

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

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.

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

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.

Book Launch

28 March 2024 at 4pm

The James Joyce Centre was proud to host the launch of the 7th volume of Cut & Paste: Remembering Arthur Griffith with guest speaker Ronan McGreevy on Thursday, March 28th at 4pm.

Ronan McGreevy is a historian and journalist with The Irish Times. His most recent book was Great Hatred: The Assassination of Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson MP.

Published by Printwell Books, Cut & Paste is an annual publication that focuses on Arthur Griffith and his times. Edited by Cormac O’Hanrahan with Des Gunning (Joyceborough), this year’s edition includes articles by Colum Kenny, Felix M. Larkin, Brian Maye, Lisa O’Neill, and Alan Phelan.

Copies were available for purchase. You may also order online at printwellbooks.com.

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

Book Launch

20 November 2023 at 7pm

The James Joyce Centre was proud to host the launch of Dubylon: A Tower of Verse on Monday, November 20th 2023 at 7pm.

Dubylon is part of an ongoing intercultural writing programme that seeks to give voices to the many tongues and traditions that are part of Dublin’s conversations in the 21st century. A part of the Intercultural Language Service’s storytelling project which began in 2017, the book provides a space for diverse people to share how they see, feel, and live in the city which is their home. In the words of Dubylon facilitator, poet Fiona Bolger, it is a “translational/national, lingual project where we will be rooting ourselves in the language and poetry of Dublin while reaching across the waters and world to bring fresh phrases to the project.”

Dubylon is a collection of poems written by Dubliners from all over the world: Syria, Palestine, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Peru, Malawi, and Brazil, among other countries. The event was brought to life with multilingual readings from the poets and musical interludes.

More information about the Intercultural Language Service can be found on its website at https://www.ilsschool.org/dubylon.html.