Bloomsday at Marsh’s Library

”… the stagnant bay of Marsh’s library where you read the fading prophecies of Joachim Abbas…” Ulysses

While waiting for his exam results from University College (now University College Dublin), 20 year-old James Joyce visited Marsh’s Library on the 22nd and 23rd of October 1902. He wrote down his address as “7 St Peter’s Terrace, Cabra.” For two days during the Bloomsday Festival, Marsh’s library will have that visitors’ book on display along with the volume of the prophecies of Joachim Abbas that Joyce mentioned in Ulysses. The furniture in the Old Reading Room of the library has not been replaced since. Visitors will be able to see the table where James Joyce/Stephen Dedalus would have consulted the book. The 1589 Venice edition gives the text of the 30 prophecies in Latin and Italian, with an accompanying commentary and an engraving for each. Legend has it, that it was W.B. Yeats who recommended the rare book to Joyce and told him to find it in Marsh’s library.

Tickets are €7 general, €4 concession. Free entry for under 18s and those in receipt of social welfare. Tickets are available online or at the door.

To see the online exhibition James Joyce: Apocalypse and Medievalism in Marsh’s Library, click here.

WHEN:

Friday, June 14, 9:30am – 5:00pm
Saturday, June 15, 10:00am – 5:00pm