Tag: Reading

Reading

8 April 2025 at 11am

We were happy to host Poet as Troublemaker on Tuesday, April 8th at 11am. It was a special poetry reading and conversation inspired by Biddy Jenkinson, who advised that “the poet is by profession a troublemaker. She must be independent to the point of eccentricity and is often, though not necessarily, as curst as a crow-trodden hen and as odd as one of the triple-faced monsters with which the Celts depicted Ogma the omniscient, gazing in all directions at once.”

This event featured readings and Q&A by Dr. Victoria Kennefick, 2025 Arts Council/Trinity College Dublin Writer Fellow, and Annemarie Ní Churreáin, UCD/Arts Council Writer in Residence for 2025. This event brought together young poets and writers from both UCD and TCD as well as members of the general public.

Annemarie Ní Churreáin is a poet from the Donegal Gaeltacht. She is the UCD/Arts Council Writer in Residence for 2025. Her poetry books include Bloodroot (Doire Press, 2017), The Poison Glen (The Gallery Press, 2021) and Ghostgirl (Donegal Archives, 2023). Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Shine Strong Award for Best Debut Collection (IRE) and for the Ledbury Hellens Poetry Prize for Best Second Collection (UK). Her recent awards include the The Markievicz Award, The Kavanagh Fellowship and a Hawthornden Residency Award (NYC). As a librettist she co-created the script for Elsewhere, the critically acclaimed debut opera of Straymaker (IRE) in co-production with the Abbey National Theatre of Ireland. Ní Churreáin is the 2025 UCD/Arts Council Writer in Residence and the current poetry editor at The Stinging Fly Magazine. Visit studiotwentyfive.com.

Dr. Victoria Kennefick is a writer, poet, editor and teacher. Her debut poetry collection, Eat or We Both Starve (Carcanet Press, 2021), won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize and the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer of the Year Award. It was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Costa Poetry Book Award, Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and the Butler Literary Prize. It was a Book of the Year in The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Sunday Independent and The White Review, and was also selected as one of The Telegraph‘s Best Poetry Books to Buy 2021. Her second collection, Egg/Shell (Carcanet Press, 2024) was a Poetry Book Society Choice for Spring 2024, BBC Poetry Extra Book of the Month for March as well as a Book of the Year in The Telegraph, The Sunday Independent and The Poetry Society UK. In 2023 she was an Arts Council of Ireland/UCD Writer in Residence as well as Poet in Residence at the Yeats Society Sligo. In 2024, she was Cork County Council Arts Office Writer in Residence. For 2025, she is delighted to be appointed as the Arts Council of Ireland/Trinity College Dublin Writer Fellow.

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

Reading

29 October 2024 at 6.30pm

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.

This event was sponsored by the Portuguese cultural institute, Camões — Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua, I.P. and the Irish branch of the Network of European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC).

“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.

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.

Reading

26 April 2024 at 6:30pm

The James Joyce Centre was delighted to host the award-winning Palestinian poet Marwan Makhoul on Friday, April 26th at 6.30pm. The reception was presented in association with Poetry Ireland and supported by Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann. The intimate evening with Makhoul and his translator Raphael Cohen featured poetry readings in both Arabic and Irish and performances of traditional Irish music by Mairead O’Donnell.

“I’m a voice that tells people about our identity, and how we have worked to preserve it as Palestinian, Arab, and in connection with our people,” says Makhoul of his work. Born to a Palestinian father and Lebanese mother, Makhoul grew up in Beqeia surrounded by a mountainous landscape that is omnipresent in his poetry. A Palestinian living within the state of Israel, his poetry deals with the marginalization of its Arab citizens, and with questions of personal and national identity.

He believes there are “no strict forms of prose and poetry anymore,” and his work draws on both esoteric forms and colloquial Arabic. His readings are dynamic and incantatory, and he often delivers his poems with accompaniment from singers and musicians. Makhoul’s poetry collections include Land of the Sad Passiflora, Where Is My Mom, and A Letter from the Last Man.

During the 2023 Gaza war, lines from one of his poems were adopted as a slogan by tens of millions of protestors and written on the walls of cities around the world: “in order for me to write poetry that isn’t / political, I must listen to the birds / and in order to hear the birds / the warplanes must be silent.”

Makhoul and his translator were hosted in Ireland by Donegal poet and editor Annemarie Ní Churreáin. Of the visit, Ni Churreáin says, “I’m delighted that Marwan Makhoul’s work is being translated into the Irish language for the first time. In addition to celebrating Marwan’s poetry, a key focus of this trip is the celebration of poetry across borders and cultures, and the act of bearing witness in poetry to social injustice. Tá mé fíorbhuíoch le gach duine atá páirteach sa chlár seo. Tá muid níos láidre le chéile!”

Reading

17 April 2024 at 1pm

The James Joyce Centre in association with the Five Lamps Arts Festival was proud to host a reading of Madeira: The Secrets of Sisters by Michael J. Harnett on Wednesday, 17 April 2024 at 1pm.

Two sets of sisters meet in a Dublin cafe for a casual chat. Suddenly, disturbing news emerged which shatters the atmosphere challenging their lives thereafter. By turns searing and sensitive the women at the heart of the drama display what it is to have courage and fortitude. Starring Geraldine Plunkett, Brenda Brooks and Deirdre Monaghan.

Over the past five years, Dublin Touring Theatre has written, produced and staged The Noble Call, The CloudSpotter and Bullied in local theatres (Sean O’Casey, Clasac, Viking, Bewleys Cafe Theatre), care homes, community centres, schools, and theatres abroad.

The reading was part of the Five Lamps Arts Festival. The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Reading

8 March 2024 at 11am

In honour of International Women’s Day, the James Joyce Centre hosted a public reading of the ‘Anna Livia Plurabelle’ chapter from Finnegans Wake in the Maginni Room. This extraordinary episode brings out all the wit and passion of one of the finest passages of feminine writing in modern literature.

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

Reading

21 November 2023 at 7pm

The James Joyce Centre was delighted to host a rehearsed reading and post-performance discussion of The Last Dance of Lizzie Moore, a new play by Daniel Seery, performed by Hidden Skirts Theatre Company on Tuesday, November 21st at 7pm.

A traffic accident on Fleet Street leaves two colleagues who have differing accounts of their time with the victim — and the secrets kept in the battered case she won’t let out of her sight.

The reading was 45 minutes long followed by a Q&A.

Hidden Skirts are a Dublin-based theatre company, that makes theatre inspired by the city and its people. Ciara and Anto have worked together since 2020 when they met on the documentary O’Casey in the Estate. Since then they have been writing and performing original pieces of work including their new play The Last Dance of Lizzie Moore by Daniel Seery. 

Daniel Seery’s short stories have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies and he was a winner in the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair Competition. He lives in Dublin with his wife and two daughters. His first book was called A Model Partner. 

The James Joyce Centre is delighted to support new Irish writers, playwrights, and artists. The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.