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Category: Lecture

Berenice Abbott, Joyce and the Creative Women

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A.G. Norton will be attending the Bloomsday Festival for the second year in a row showcasing her more academic piece “Berenice Abbott, James Joyce & the Creative Women.” This illustrated talk features archival research into Abbott’s life including hand written letters from Lucia Joyce to Abbott and photographic references of Abbott’s personal life and writings relating to the Joyce photography sittings.

A chance discovery of a box of family photos in a basement in New Jersey led one woman to uncover Abbott’s seldom told artistic legacy. Follow storyteller, archivist, and social activist A.G. Norton on her personal journey through Abbott’s private archive revealing: letters written by Lucia Joyce to Berenice, personal commentary made by Berenice about her multiple photography sessions with the beloved author, and the intersections between the publication of Ulysses and the community of queer women who supported it.

Throughout the 1920s, Berenice Abbott’s life crisscrossed between Greenwich Village and Paris where, in addition to the Joyce family, she photographed and befriended fellow queer women including Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, Djuna Barnes, Jannett Flanner, and Sylvia Beach. Hear of how their friendships and artistic endeavors all entwined with one another and the lessons and blessings their legacies leave behind.

Delighted to be joining the Bloomsday Festival from Connecticut, Norton will share her research into Abbott’s fascinating life which all started with the discovery of photos taken by her late grandfather and went onto interviews with both of Abbott’s biographers and personal friends, Julia Van Hafften and Hank O’Neal.

Tickets are €5.

A.G. Norton Bio

A.G. Norton has over 15 years experience in London as a social worker and children’s rights activist where she used her voice to publicly advocate for underserved, marginalized communities.

Returning to New York in 2018 she discovered her family’s personal connection and photographs of photographer Berenice Abbott and has spent the last three years gathering research into her remarkable life. Norton has written several performance pieces based on the photographic legacies she inherited and has toured them at the Brighton, Camden, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. Norton was the 2023 recipient of the Brighton Pride Award to support queer storytelling.

For more information on her work and international performances can be found at www.vivelapin.com or @notyouraverageslideshow on Instagram.

Images: Berenice Abbot, Portraits of Sylvia Beach, James Joyce, Lucia Joyce, and Nora Joyce, 1926-27, courtesy Clark Art Institute. Centre photgraph by Charles Norton, courtesy of A.G. Norton.

A Portrait of the Artist and his Novels

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Join us at the Hugh Lane Gallery for this illustrated Bloomsday lecture by Yseult O’Driscoll on Saturday, June 14th at 1pm. Yseult will explore portraits and photographs of James Joyce alongside illustrations including book covers, and artistic interpretations of his works.

More information can be found at https://hughlane.ie/explore_learn/bloomsday-25/.

The event is free and open to the public. Space is limited.

Image: James Joyce Study, ’59 by Louis le Brocquy (1916 – 2012); Watercolour on paper; Collection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Donated by Louis le Brocquy

The Waking Dead with Patrick Callan

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Join us at The James Joyce Centre for a special Bloomsday Festival launch of an exciting new work of scholarship by historian Patrick Callan on Sunday, June 15th at 7pm.

Death in Dublin During the Era of James Joyce’s Ulysses (2025, Routledge) focuses on the funeral of Paddy Dignam in James Joyce’s Ulysses, which serves as the pivotal event of the ‘Hades’ episode. This volume explores how Dignam’s interment in Glasnevin Cemetery allowed Joyce the freedom to consider the conventions, rituals and superstitions associated with death and burial in Dublin.

Integrating the words and characters of Ulysses with its figurative locale, the book looks at the presence of Dublin in Ulysses, and Ulysses in Dublin. It emphasises the highly visible public role assigned to death in Joyce’s world, while also appreciating how it is woven into the universe of Ulysses. The study examines the role of Glasnevin Cemetery – where the Joyce family plot was opened in 1880 and remained in use for eight decades – as well as the social and medical problems associated with life in Dublin, a city divided by class, status, wealth and health. Nineteen burials took place in Glasnevin on 16 June 1904, and the analysis of this group illuminates the role of undertakers and insurers, along with the importance of memorialisation.

This book is an important contribution to Joyce and Irish studies, as well as to international studies related to the treatment of the dead body and the development of garden cemeteries.

Author Patrick Callan will offer insights of his work and answer questions from the audience. The talk will be followed by music and readings to celebrate the eve of Bloomsday, June 16th.

Patrick Callan is Visiting Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. His work on Ulysses and the role of radio in Joyce’s work has appeared in the James Joyce Quarterly (2021), the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television (2019), and the Dublin James Joyce Journal (2018–20).

The event is free but booking is essential. Doors open at 6.30pm.

Teatime Talk: John Philpot Curran

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“Grattan and Flood wrote for this very paper, the editor cried in his face. Irish volunteers. Where are you now? Established 1763. Dr Lucas. Who have you now like John Philpot Curran? Psha!” Chapter 7 (‘Aeolus’), Ulysses

14 Henrietta Street presents Teatime Talks, a series of talks inspired by the history and people of 14 Henrietta Street. By listening and engaging with visitors, historians, experts, local people, former tenement residents and their families, we continue to uncover, record and respond to the 300 year story of 14 Henrietta Street.

John Philpot Curran (1750-1817) was one of Ireland’s most extraordinary legal personalities and orators. Join writer, solicitor and relation of Curran, Ronan Sheehan, for this talk exploring his life and influence. The story of 14 Henrietta Street is forever linked to the law through King’s Inns, where John Philpot Curran is honoured to this day. His legendary legal defences of United Irishmen brought him to great prominence and earned the praise of Karl Marx. Curran was said by Daniel O’Connell to be “the soul of the Irish Republic.” He even made an appearance in James Joyce’s Ulysses!

This talk will take place in person on the 1st floor of the museum and can be accessed via lift.

Tickets are €5 general, €3 concession. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us on +353 1 524 0383 or email us at info@14henriettastreet.ie.

Lucia Joyce in Paris

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James Joyce’s only daughter Lucia flourished as a modern dancer at the heart of the artistic avant-garde in 1920s Paris. In this illustrated talk, Deirdre Mulrooney shares highlights of her time walking in Lucia’s footsteps while on residency at Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris last year.

Deirdre Mulrooney is a dance historian, writer/director, and documentary maker. She is the author of Irish Moves, an illustrated history of dance and physical theatre in Ireland, Lucia Joyce: Full Capacity (originally published in Joyce Studies Annual), and a book on Pina Bausch (her PhD). Her films have been broadcast on RTE, TG4, and selected for film festivals worldwide, from Lincoln Center NYC Dance on Camera Festival, to Bloomsday Film Festival at the IFI. As part of her ongoing project to re-inscribe the body into Irish cultural history Deirdre has been reclaiming Lucia Joyce as a significant artist since her 2019 RTE Lyric FM feature radio documentary and short dance film starring Evanna Lynch. Dublin’s James Joyce Centre has supported Deirdre’s project since 2021 when she directed Patrick Hastings’ play Calico for the Bloomsday Festival, followed by Come and See Me, her December 13th 2022 interdisciplinary Saint Lucia’s Day event and associated exhibition which celebrated Joyce’s artistic achievements, and marked the 40th anniversary of her death. Deirdre was delighted to be awarded an artist residency at Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, in April 2024. For more information, visit www.deirdremulrooney.com.

The event is free and open to the public.

“Save the Trees of Ireland”: Ulysses and Ireland’s Imagined and Actual Arboreal Narrative

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Donal Magner and Brendan Lacey explore James Joyce’s approach to trees and forestry in Ulysses in Avondale on June 15 and in the National Botanic Gardens on June 16. Entitled “Save the Trees of Ireland,” Magner and Lacey explore the arboreal reality and fantasy in Ulysses from the imagined conversations in Barney Kiernan’s public house to Avondale where the rebirth of forestry was actually taking place.

Trees are repeatedly referenced in Ulysses, often reflecting the parlous nature of Irish forestry in 1904. The talk delves into Joyce’s arboreal world and transposes the narrative to what was actually happening to rescue Ireland’s vastly depleted forests at the time. While the customers in Barney Kiernan’s public house in Dublin are bemoaning the decline of Irish forests in the “Cyclops” episode of Ulysses, Avondale Estate, Co. Wicklow, is being purchased by the State, which begins a new chapter “to reafforest the land.”

Joyce was well aware of what was happening at the time to restore Ireland’s forest resource not just in Ulysses but also in an essay written on Home Rule in Trieste in 1907.

Joyce also writes about the 1903 ‘cyclone’ – as he called it – in the novel and the damage caused especially to trees in the Phoenix Park. This was a tipping point to Ireland forest destruction and as a result Professor John Nisbet of the West of Scotland Agriculture College was commissioned by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction to produce a report on the state of the nation’s forests. Prof. Nisbet was shocked by the damage caused by the storm and when he delivered his report, he made an important and visionary proposal, which would shape Irish forest policy for the rest of the century. Nisbet said that if the afforestation of Ireland “be a duty at all, it is the duty of the State and not of the private landowner.”

So, the cry to “Save the trees of Ireland,” by the “citizen” in Barney Kiernan’s pub was being met in reality as the first tentative steps to restore Ireland’s forests were being taken, which the talk explores.

Both talks begin at 2.30pm in the Coillte Pavilion Avondale on Sunday, 15 June and the National Botanic Gardens on Monday 16 June. There is no admission charge.

“Save the Trees of Ireland”: Ulysses and Ireland’s Imagined and Actual Arboreal Narrative

Written by Conor on .

Donal Magner and Brendan Lacey explore James Joyce’s approach to trees and forestry in Ulysses in Avondale on June 15th and in the National Botanic Gardens on June 16th. Entitled “Save the Trees of Ireland,” Magner and Lacey explore the arboreal reality and fantasy in Ulysses from the imagined conversations in Barney Kiernan’s public house to Avondale where the rebirth of forestry was actually taking place.

Trees are repeatedly referenced in Ulysses, often reflecting the parlous nature of Irish forestry in 1904. The talk delves into Joyce’s arboreal world and transposes the narrative to what was actually happening to rescue Ireland’s vastly depleted forests at the time. While the customers in Barney Kiernan’s public house in Dublin are bemoaning the decline of Irish forests in the “Cyclops” episode of Ulysses, Avondale Estate, Co. Wicklow, is being purchased by the State, which begins a new chapter “to reafforest the land.”

Joyce was well aware of what was happening at the time to restore Ireland’s forest resource not just in Ulysses but also in an essay written on Home Rule in Trieste in 1907.

Joyce also writes about the 1903 ‘cyclone’ – as he called it – in the novel and the damage caused especially to trees in the Phoenix Park. This was a tipping point to Ireland forest destruction and as a result Professor John Nisbet of the West of Scotland Agriculture College was commissioned by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction to produce a report on the state of the nation’s forests. Prof. Nisbet was shocked by the damage caused by the storm and when he delivered his report, he made an important and visionary proposal, which would shape Irish forest policy for the rest of the century. Nisbet said that if the afforestation of Ireland “be a duty at all, it is the duty of the State and not of the private landowner.”

So, the cry to “Save the trees of Ireland,” by the “citizen” in Barney Kiernan’s pub was being met in reality as the first tentative steps to restore Ireland’s forests were being taken, which the talk explores.

Both talks begin at 2.30pm in the Coillte Pavilion Avondale on Sunday, 15 June and the National Botanic Gardens on Monday 16 June. There is no admission charge.

The Joyce of Jewish Writing

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The Irish Jewish Museum is proud to present their Annual Bloomsday Lecture “The Joyce of Jewish Writing” on Sunday, June 15th.

3.00pm: The Joyce of Jewish Writing

We know that Jewish themes are central to Ulysses but the importance of Ulysses for Jewish writers remains to be explored; Joyce himself was enduringly interested in the Jewish people but the extent of the reciprocation of this interest is an open question. This lecture will pursue three investigations: what is the nature of Joyce’s significance for Jewish writers?; how did Jewish interest in Joyce alter Irish-Jewish dialogue in the 20th century?; and, how does our sense of Jewish literature change when we acknowledge Joyce’s place within it?

Why did Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth all take a name from Joyce’s fiction for their protagonists? Why did Yankev Glatshteyn compose, in 1928, his prose-poem parody of Finnegans Wake, “Ven Joyce volt geshribn Yiddish”? And why, in Nicole Krauss’s 2005 novel The History of Love, does an elderly Yiddish poet chant passages from the “Penelope” episode of Ulysses? Cynthia Ozick said that Joyce’s art has “inflamed generations”. This lecture will explore this claim, particularly as regards—l’dor vador, from generation to generation—Jewish literature

Lev Julius is a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge, researching a thesis entitled “Joyceans: A History of Jewish-American Fiction”. His research aims to reconstruct the history of the Jewish-American novel, placing James Joyce at the centre. He has a strong interest in the broader context of Irish-Jewish relations and has spoken, most recently, on the place of Conor Cruise O’Brien in the history of Irish attitudes to Israel and Palestine.

For reservations, please email info@jewishmuseum.ie. Tickets will be sold at the door.

 

The Heart of the Hibernian Metropolis: Bloomsday at the GPO

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Join us at the GPO Museum for 2025’s Bloomsday Festival. On Saturday, 14th June we will be holding a number of talks on Dublin in the time of James Joyce, exploring elements of the city that would have inspired and, at times, maddened the writer, particularly in the early 20th century.

Our keynote speaker is Dublin historian Dr. Catriona Crowe, who will deliver her insights into the works of James Joyce and the city of his birth. Dr. Crowe is the former Head of Special Projects at the National Archives of Ireland. Crowe’s work has been published in numerous journals and her commitment to maintaining Ireland’s archives and her expertise in women’s and social history has made her one of the country’s most esteemed academics.

Our guides will also be delivering talks on a variety of subjects such as music, architecture, social conditions and clothing. So join us on June 14th for an afternoon exploring Dublin at the turn of the century. Entry is free, and all are welcome!

The event starts at 12pm. Booking is not required. However, free admission to the museum itself is not included. Visitors interested in our Bloomsday event may enter at the front desk of the museum and will be directed to the Commemoration Gallery where the event will take place.

Bloomsday Villages: Ringsend & Irishtown

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The Ringsend & District Historical Society in partnership with Dublin City Council’s South East Area Community Team and with support by the Ringsend & Irishtown Community Centre is proud to present Bloomsday Villages: Ringsend & Irishtown on June 12-16th. Ringsend is where James Joyce and Nora Barnacle had their first date on June 16th, 1904. the date on which Ulysses is set. What better way to celebrate Bloomsday than to spend it where it all began!

Thursday, 12th June

7pm: Launch of the Ringsend Bloomsday Festival 2025
Venue: Ringsend & Irishtown Community Centre, Thorncastle Street, Ringsend, Dublin 4
Start your Bloomsday adventures early with an evening of poetry and short story readings from local writers including local school students who are participating in this year’s “Writer’s Adventure” intergenerational project.

Friday, 13th June

11am: Tour of St. Matthews Church
Venue: St. Matthews Church, Irishtown Road, Dublin 4
Take a tour of the historic and recently renovated St. Matthews Church and its graveyard with Trevor James.


Saturday, 14th June 

11am: Ringsend 1904
Venue: Ringsend Library, Fitzwilliam Street, Ringsend, Dublin 4
Take a trip back in time with local historian, Eddie Bohan for a lecture on Ringsend during the days of Ulysses.


12.15pm: Ringsend & Docklands Walking Tour
Meeting Point: Ringsend Library Plaza, Fitzwilliam Street, Ringsend, Dublin 4
Take a stroll with local historian, Eamonn Bohan, as he explores Joyce’s connections to the local area.

2pm: Bloomsday Folk & Ballad Session
Venue: Ringsend Library Plaza, Fitzwilliam Street, Ringsend, Dublin 4
Enjoy a two hour open air music session with live performances from the likes of Mick the Busker, Carmel Weafer and local balladeers, The Pullovers.

Sunday, 15th June


9.30am: Bloomsday Boat Trip
Meeting Point: Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club, Pigeon House Road, Ringsend, Dublin 4
Hop on board the ‘St. Brigid’ for a one hour trip around Dublin Bay and hear about the history of the Bay with Richie Saunders and Cormac Louth. Bonus live music on offer too! *Advance booking is essential. For bookings, please email ringsenddistricthistorical@gmail.com.

Monday, 16th June


10.45am: Joycean Procession
Meeting Point: Outside St. Patrick’s Church, Thorncastle Street, Ringsend, Dublin 4
Don your Edwardian garb and follow a Horse Drawn Carriage past Strasburg Terrace to the Joyce Bench in Ringsend Park, the location of James Joyce and Nora Barnacle’s very first date.

12pm: Bloomsday Brunch
Venue: Ringsend & Irishtown Community Centre, Thorncastle Street, Ringsend, Dublin 4
Enjoy a chat and refreshments outdoors to a backdrop of jazz from the Emilie Conway Duo, some street theatre and literary readings.

The events are free and open to the public unless otherwise indicated. For more information, please email ringsenddistricthistorical@gmail.com.

Bloomsday Lecture: “Discovering James Joyce’s Dublin by Reading and Running”

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This year’s Bloomsday Lecture from the James Joyce Tower & Museum is named “Discovering James Joyce’s Dublin by Reading and Running” and will be delivered by Barry Sheehan. It will be held in the DLR Lexicon, Dun Laoghaire.

Barry has been researching James Joyce and Dublin since 2014 for his running blog dedicated to the works of James Joyce, www.jj21k.com. In the process, he has turned the locations of Joyce’s four major works into half marathons. Barry writes articles inspired by James Joyce for the website that he turns into conference papers and presentations.

Barry is Head of Design at the TU Dublin School of Art + Design and is a fellow of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland. Barry has been involved in the design of numerous projects from architecture and interior design to graphics, multimedia and product design.

The event is free but booking is essential.

Jewish Dublin in the Time of Ulysses

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The Irish Jewish Museum is proud to present two events for Bloomsday, Sunday, June 16th about the Jewish history of Dublin during James Joyce’s time.

1.30pm: Joyce Focus Tour

The Irish Jewish Museum welcomes you to visit us in the heart of what was the Jewish quarter of Portobello. Here you will find memories of life as Leopold Bloom might have known and Joyce witnessed in the early 1900’s. €10 per ticket.

3pm: Screening of Estella

A documentary on the life of Estella Solomons, the Irish landscape and portrait painter and contemporary of Joyce. Born in Dublin in 1882 in a country on the verge of great political and social change, she joined the struggle for independence and her portraits record three generation of rebels, artists and literary figures who forged the new Ireland. (2002. Ireland. Colour. Beta. 52 mins)

The film is directed by Steve Woods, who will be present at the screening. €5 per ticket.

For reservations, please email info@jewishmuseum.ie. Tickets will be sold at the door.

“Save the Trees of Ireland”: Ulysses and Ireland’s Imagined and Actual Arboreal Narrative

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Coillte and Rotary in Ireland present “Save the Trees of Ireland”: Ulysses and Ireland’s Imagined and Actual Arboreal Narrative, a talk by Donal Magner on Bloomsday, Sunday June 16th at 11am at the Meeting House of Beyond the Trees Avondale, Co. Wicklow.

Trees are repeatedly referenced in Ulysses, often reflecting the parlous nature of Irish forestry in 1904. This talk, delivered by Donal Magner, explores Joyce’s awareness of forest decline in Ulysses and transposes the narrative to what was actually happening to rescue Ireland’s vastly depleted forests at the time. While the customers in Barney Kiernan’s public house were bemoaning the decline of Irish forests, Avondale house and estate was just purchased by the State in June 1904 as a forestry school and tree species trial. The cry to “Save the trees of Ireland,” by the “Citizen” in the Cyclops episode, was being met in reality as the first tentative steps to restore Ireland’s forests were being taken. Donal Magner discusses the uncertain narrative of Irish forestry leading up to 1922, when Ulysses was published and brings the story up-to-date in the Meeting House, Avondale, close to Coillte’s Beyond the Trees experience.

The talk is free and open to the public. Visitors are required to pay a €5 parking charge at the venue.

Classical Myths into Contemporary Art

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‘Classical Myths into Contemporary Art’’

Join us for this illustrated Bloomsday lecture by Yseult O’Driscoll at the Hugh Lane Gallery on Sunday, June 16th at 1pm.

James Joyce based Ulysses largely on Homer’s epic adventure story The Odyssey, adapting, reworking, and often subverting it, to apply to the Dublin of his day. He created parallels, that were sometimes ironic, between the ancient Greek heroes and their adventures, and the various characters and their activities as they cross the streets of Dublin over the course of the 16th June 1904.  This lecture looks at how contemporary artists have produced work exploring similar parallels between the ancient and modern worlds, just as Joyce does in his version of Homer’s epic tale.

The event is free, no booking required. Space limited.

More Information

Bloomsday Festival 2024 Launch & Reception

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Come join us at the James Joyce Centre on Tuesday, June 11th at 6pm for the formal launch of this year’s Bloomsday Festival. The Bloomsday Festival is in full-swing this year with close to one-hundred separate events on June 11th-16th throughout Dublin. Our reception will feature talks and readings (and some wine!) as we celebrate another year of Bloomsday celebrations. We will be joined by British artist Jo Hamill as she introduces our new art exhibition Gutter Words. French artist Rémi Rousseau will also be on hand as he introduces his new art exhibition Ulysses: Illustrations. Join festival goers around Dublin and the world as we kick off this extraordinary time of the year!

The event is free but booking is essential.

The Heart of the Hibernian Metropolis: Bloomsday at the GPO

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Join us at the GPO Museum from 12pm on Saturday, June 15th for an afternoon of talks and music for the Bloomsday Festival. Located in ‘the Heart of the Hibernian Metropolis,’ as Joyce might say, the General Post Office has stood in the middle of Dublin’s busiest street since 1818. An iconic building in Dublin’s urban landscape, the GPO is also home to the GPO Museum, where we are dedicated to discussing Ireland’s 20th history with particular focus on Ireland’s fight for independence.

This Bloomsday weekend the GPO will hold a series of talks relating to James Joyce, rebellion and mythology. This includes a special talk at 12pm by renowned Joyce expert Luke Gibbons, author of James Joyce and the Irish Revolution (2023). Gibbons has taught as a Professor of Irish Studies in Maynooth University and the University of Notre Dame, and has published widely on Irish culture and criticism. These talks will focus on a variety of topics, exploring both Joyce’s relationship with Ireland’s revolutionary period and its cultural revival, and the use of Irish mythology during Ireland’s cultural revival and the fight for independence alongside Joyce’s use of other mythologies in his Dublin epic Ulysses.

We will also have music from harpist Rachel Duffy between the talks celebrating James Joyce’s great love of music. Rachel Duffy is from Bray in Co. Wicklow, has performed at festivals around the world and plays regularly with groups including Na Cauci, Triad Trio and the National Folk Orchestra. She enjoys teaching the harp in Wicklow and Dublin and working with harp ensembles at Bray CCE and TU Dublin.

Admission to the Bloomsday talks and Music is free and a ticket is not required, though they are available on the website. Priority seating will be given to café customers. If you have any queries, please get in touch with us at: +353 01 872 1916 or email us at: info@gpowitnesshistory.ie.

Please note that admission to the Bloomsday Talks and Music event does not include entry to the museum. Tickets are non-transferable to another person, tour or date.

Bloomsday at MoLI – Museum of Literature Ireland

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Come celebrate Bloomsday in MoLI – Museum of Literature Ireland on St. Stephen’s Green. MoLI is situated in the Newman House, where James Joyce (and Stephen Dedalus) went to university when it was the campus of University College.

5PM: Dedalus Lecture with Fintan O’Tolle

Journalist and author Fintan O’Toole delivers the museum’s annual lecture inspired by Ulysses.

Fintan O’Toole is a writer and author. His books include We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958, Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain, and Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger. A member of the Royal Irish Academy, he is a winner of the European Press Prize and the Orwell Prize. He is also professor of Irish letters at Princeton University.

Tickets are €18.

7-10PM: MoLI Bloomsday Garden Party

Round off your Bloomsday celebrations at the MoLI Bloomsday Garden Party – held across the museum’s beautiful exhibitions and gardens. Celebrate 102 years of Joyce’s Ulysses with a glass in hand, and live music from Ireland’s most exciting musicians and rappers, whose adventure with language echoes Joyce’s own fearlessness with words. A guaranteed highlight of the summer!

Includes a welcome drink on arrival. Presented in partnership with the Dublin Liberties Distillery. Under 18s must be accompanied by an adult.

Offica has redefined what it means to be an Irish rapper, breaking records with a run of classic singles and game-changing freestyles. He has carved a niche for himself by seamlessly incorporating Irish and Yoruba slang into his lyrics, providing a unique window into his culture and identity. Watch video

Celine is a talented musician known for her unique style and storytelling in true rap. She has gained a strong following for her emotional lyrics and captivating performances. Watch video

Emmy Shigeta is a Japanese DJ whose love for music developed while working in a record store in Tokyo. Now based in Dublin, she loves to play ambient (環境音楽), city pop, and the latest underground J-pop in various venues and on her monthly Dublin Digital Radio show.

Tickets are €24.

Finnegans Wakeshop

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Come join us at the James Joyce Centre for a unique experience at Finnegans Wakeshop.

Carol Wade of Art of the Wake and Des Gunning of Joyceborough will look back at ‘FW85,’ the 85th anniversary of the publication of Finnegans Wake, and a headsup on plans to mark ‘Mamalujo 101’ in 2025. Des Gunning has been running the Joyceborough Finnegans Wake Reading Group for fifteen years and Carol Wade has been illustrating the Wake for as long. This year, they and others combined forces for the first time to mark the occassion of FW85.

In Finnegans Wakeshop, they will reflect in that experience and look ahead to the coming 15 years, which will bring us to FW100. A copiously-illustrated with live performance of the text and plenty of audience participation. A short film, ‘On the Calends of Mars,’ will be screened.

The event is free but booking is essential. No previous Wake-reading experience required. Come enjoy this uniquely Joycean experience!

Image from Art of the Wake by Carol Wade.

Bloomsday Villages: Ringsend/Irishtown

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The Ringsend & District Historical Society in partnership with Dublin City Council’s South East Area Community Team is proud to present Bloomsday Villages: Ringsend/Irishtown on June 15th and 16th. Ringsend is where James Joyce and Nora Barnacle had their first date on June 16th, 1904 — the date on which Ulysses is set. What better way to celebrate Bloomsday than to spend it where it all began!

Saturday, June 15th  

11 am: Ringsend Library
A lecture by the DCC Historian in Residence Cormac Moore, ‘The Life of Constance Markievicz’

12pm: Ringsend Library
A walking Tour with Eddie Bohan, ‘In The Footsteps of Joyce 1904.’ Departs & ends at the Ringsend Library.

1.30pm: Bus Tour
A 45-minute bus tour courtesy of the Big Bus Open Top. The tour takes place in Sandymount Strand, the Green and Irishtown.

3pm: Ringsend Library
An outdoor ballad/folksong session.

Sunday, June 16th  

10.30am: Thorncastle Street
A horse and carriage parade to Ringsend Park, departing from Thorncastle Street. Tour route: Irishtown Road, Pembroke Street, Strasburg Terrace with a Ulysess performance, Ringsend Park, return via Caroline Row, Fitzwilliam Street to the RICC Centre. The event will feature the unveiling of a plaque and seat dedicated to James Joyce and Nora Barnacle commemorating their first date with thanks to Dublin City Council.

12.30pm: RICC Centre 
The Bloomsday Brunch featuring live music, food and period dress.

4 pm: CYMS Hall, Ringsend
The Writers Adventure, ‘Remembering Ringsend.’ A short story and poetry prize presentation. Books tokens (€200, €100 & €75) awarded courtesy of Savvi, Irishtown.

The events are free and open to the public.

Rosa Chacel and James Joyce: A Portrait of a Joycean Artist

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The James Joyce Centre and Instituto Cervantes Dublín is proud to present Rosa Chacel and James Joyce: A Portrait of a Joycean Artist with Mónica Galindo González on 6 June 2024 at 6:30pm.

This year is the centenary of Spain’s first publication regarding the work of James Joyce, which was a review by Antonio Marichalar about the upcoming Spanish translation of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). Even though the translation was officially published in 1926, some writers were fortunate to get an early copy of the novel and explore its contents. One of these writers was Rosa Chacel, who immediately fell in love with Joyce’s novel and started to experiment with his techniques.

Rosa Chacel (1898 – 1994) is a writer part of the “Generation of ’27” and the Sinsombrero thanks to her participation in the intellectual and cultural milieu of the 20th-century Spain. Due to the close relationship between her life and her writings, her literary innovations made her a nonconformist and subversive writer, always concerned about her style and trajectory. One of her main influences was the writings of James Joyce, which made her recognise that her work is part of “el mundo Joyce” (Joyce’s world).

Joycean scholar Mónica Galindo González will guide the audience through Rosa Chacel’s work and its Joycean connections. The event will be followed by a Q&A section.

Mónica Galindo González is one of the assistants at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin and a language tutor at University College Dublin. During her Erasmus in Birmingham, she decided to explore Dublin. Her first visit to the James Joyce Centre in 2019 was so inspiring that it gave her the idea to research Joycean traits in the work of Spanish writers for her bachelor’s dissertation. Her passion for James Joyce and the work of Rosa Chacel allowed her to continue this project and bring it to University College Dublin, where she recently submitted a research masters dissertation on the same topic. Mónica has also presented papers in three international conferences in Joyce Studies. In June of this year, she will be presenting a paper at the International Joyce Symposium in Glasglow about the symbol of paralysis in Spain and Ireland.

The event is free. No booking is necessary.

“Flowers of Sleep”: Bringing Paddy Dignam from Sandymount to Glasnevin

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The funeral of Paddy Dignam in James Joyce’s Ulysses serves as the pivotal event of the ‘Hades’ episode. Dignam’s funeral cavalcade leaves his home in Sandymount at 11 a.m. on 16 June 1904, taking him across the city to Glasnevin Cemetery. His death and interment allowed Joyce the freedom to consider many of the conventions, rituals and superstitions associated with death and burial in Dublin. Drawing on Ulysses as well as contemporary sources, this talk by Dr. Patrick Callan will look at a variety of aspects relating to the domestic and public treatment of the dead body in Dublin, including the practice of the wake, and the traditional offerings of flowers.

Dr. Callan is a Dublin historian and Visiting Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. His book Death in Dublin during the Era of James Joyce’s Ulysses will be published by Routledge.

The event is free but booking is essential. The talk is part of the James Joyce Centre Lecture Series.

Annotating Joyce’s Ulysses for the Internet

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For 33 years John Hunt was a literature professor at the University of Montana in Missoula, where he chiefly taught Shakespeare and other writers of the English Renaissance. Later in his career he began offering classes in Joyce’s works, a passion that led to the creation of the Joyce Project, an online resource to aid readers of Ulysses as they read. This halfway-to-completion website offers edited versions of the novel’s eighteen chapters with embedded hyperlinks that allow readers to jump immediately to annotations that can help them make sense of the passages they are reading. The commentary is supplemented with abundant visual illustrations.

Professor Hunt will talk about the possibilities available to an annotator of Joyce who chooses to publish online rather than in print. His work builds on the labours of previously published scholars but employs a new format appropriate to the electronic medium. The structure he has devised allows annotations to become longer, to address multiple passages in the text, to accommodate multiple ways of reading passages, to supplement objective presentation of information with subjective description of artistic effects, to engage with the non-linear, cross-referential structures that Joyce built into his book, and to speak effectively both to first-time readers of the novel and to more experienced Joyceans. Hunt will detail the logic behind his form of commentary and look at a few examples on the website. At the end of his prepared remarks there will be time for questions and discussion.

Teatime Talk: Henrietta Street in the Age of Joyce

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14 Henrietta Street presents Teatime Talks, a series of talks inspired by the history and people of 14 Henrietta Street. By listening and engaging with visitors, historians, experts, local people, former tenement residents and their families, we continue to uncover, record and respond to the 300 year story of 14 Henrietta Street.

Henrietta Street is described in Dubliners, James Joyce’s celebrated collection of short stories. But what was happening on this street in the lifetime of James Joyce? In this illustrated talk, historian Donal Fallon will explore the journey of Henrietta Street and the local area (including Bolton Street and Capel Street) in the age of Joyce. Donal Fallon is social historian to Dublin City Council Culture Company and the presenter of the Three Castles Burning podcast.

This talk will take place in person on the 1st floor of the Museum and can be accessed via lift.

Tickets are €5 general, €3 concession. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us on +353 1 524 0383 or email us at info@14henriettastreet.ie.

Berenice Abbott, Joyce and the Creative Women

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Please join us at James Joyce Centre for a personal Bloomsday Festival presentation on Berenice Abbott, a pioneering 20th-century photographer who took some of the most iconic portraits of Joyce and his family, and the community of creative, queer women who supported his career.

A chance discovery of a box of family photos in a basement in New Jersey led one woman to uncover Abbott’s seldom told artistic legacy. Follow storyteller, archivist, and social activist A.G. Norton on her personal journey through Abbott’s private archive revealing: letters written by Lucia Joyce to Berenice, personal commentary made by Berenice about her multiple photography sessions with the beloved author, and the intersections between the publication of Ulysses and the community of queer women who supported it.

Throughout the 1920s, Berenice Abbott’s life crisscrossed between Greenwich Village and Paris where, in addition to the Joyce family, she photographed and befriended fellow queer women including Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, Djuna Barnes, Jannett Flanner, and Sylvia Beach. Hear of how their friendships and artistic endeavors all entwined with one another and the lessons and blessings their legacies leave behind.

Delighted to be joining the Bloomsday Festival from Connecticut, Norton will share her research into Abbott’s fascinating life which all started with the discovery of photos taken by her late grandfather and went onto interviews with both of Abbott’s biographers and personal friends, Julia Van Hafften and Hank O’Neal.

Special guest reader Deirdre Mulrooney.

Tickets are €15.

A.G. Norton Bio

A.G. Norton has over 15 years experience in London as a social worker and children’s rights activist where she used her voice to publicly advocate for underserved, marginalized communities.

Returning to New York in 2018 she discovered her family’s personal connection and photographs of photographer Berenice Abbott and has spent the last three years gathering research into her remarkable life. Norton has written several performance pieces based on the photographic legacies she inherited and has toured them at the Brighton, Camden, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. Norton was the 2023 recipient of the Brighton Pride Award to support queer storytelling.

For more information on her work and international performances can be found at www.vivelapin.com or @notyouraverageslideshow on Instagram.

Images: Berenice Abbot, Portraits of Sylvia Beach, James Joyce, Lucia Joyce, and Nora Joyce, 1926-27, courtesy Clark Art Institute. Centre photgraph by Charles Norton, courtesy of A.G. Norton.

“As far … as corrupt Paris lies from virgin Dublin”: James Joyce in Paris

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James Joyce spent almost twenty years in Paris over the course of his life. He was drawn to the city by his fascination with French poets, such as Charles Baudelaire, and in turn left his own mark on the city by way of a small park in the 13th arrondissement, the Jardin James Joyce.

And yet, the pull of home remained strong, as Joyce, in exile, constantly wrote about Dublin in his work. Never returning to Ireland, Joyce, nevertheless, demonstrates the many connections that exist in the migrant’s life.

This talk, delivered by DCU Assistant Professor of English Ellen Howley, explores Joyce’s time in Paris, from the literary circles he engaged with to the works he published while there. Taking us from the bohemian Left Bank in the 1920s to the impending threat of war in the 1930s, it reveals the importance of the City of Light to Ireland’s most well-known author.

Tickets are €5.