James Joyce

Art exhibition inspired by James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’ goes on display at Sweny’s Pharmacy

A Dublin artist will show a series of art works inspired by James Joyce’s celebrated story, “The Dead,” appropriately at “Sweny’s Pharmacy” in Lincoln Place in Dublin.

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12 films, TV shows, albums and books that shaped Irish culture

Brace yourself for another list. With St Patrick’s Day on the horizon, what better time to assess and, indeed, celebrate the cultural landscape?

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‘JK Rowling has always advocated for the most vulnerable in society – and I wish people would listen to her,’ says Harry Potter star Evanna Lynch

Evanna Lynch, the actor best known for playing Luna Lovegood in four Harry Potter films, has been facing up to her prejudices.

Hot metal, heavy metal, great men and chancers: I learned many life lessons in Dublin’s old newsrooms

When James Joyce declared that if Dublin “one day suddenly disappeared from the Earth, it could be reconstructed from my book [Ulysses]”, he could not have imagined the construction mania that would one day beset his beloved city. One area, however, that seems to have evaded much change is the Georgian crescent of Beresford Place just behind the Custom House. It still looks as dreary and dowdy as it did when I began my journalistic career there.

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When Seán O’Sullivan created a compelling portrait of the artist James Joyce as an older man

Seán O’Sullivan, a carpenter’s son born in Dublin in 1906, was educated by the Christian Brothers in Synge Street and studied at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art where he was taught by Seán Keating.

James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ gets trigger warning 100 years after the book was banned

A century after outraged censors banned Ulysses in 1922, academics have decided James Joyce’s novel may be too shocking for modern students and have slapped it with a trigger warning for being potentially “offensive”.

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Author Áine Ní Ghlinn on David Walliams’s book Mr Stink: ‘Calling a homeless person stinky is never funny’

Áine Ní Ghlinn is the current Laureate na nÓg, Children’s Literature Laureate.

Obituary: John Kelly, academic and former professor of engineering at UCD who was a key figure in college life

Professor John Kelly, who has died aged 87, was a leading engineer who also served as registrar at University College Dublin and, reflecting his Northern Irish origins, raised funds in Dublin to support the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).

Country Matters: A seasonal bite to fuel brave souls banishing spooks

Colcannon for Halloween. How many Irish households dish it up as festive fare these days? James Joyce wrote in Finnegans Wake: “And for kailkannonkabbis gimme Cin cinnatis with Italian… ciccalick cheese.”

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A centenary of Joycean fumbling between the covers

Like Mount Everest, everyone knows about Joyce’s Ulysses – but not everyone has tackled it.

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Ambitious, dazzling and uplifting – Joseph O’Connor reviews Ian McEwan’s l Lessons

Lessons Ian McEwan Jonathan Cape, €15.99

Reading James Joyce’s classic Ulysses in university nearly put me off being a writer, says Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie has revealed he was so impressed by reading Ulysses in university that it nearly put him off his dream of being a writer.

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John Downing Opinion ECB boss Christine Lagarde evokes synchronised swimming and reading James Joyce

Christine Lagarde has her own way of coping with the pressures of a high-powered job. In large part, she harks back to a motto from her days on the French national synchronized swimming team, which goes: “Grit your teeth and smile.”

Literary gaze finally settles on Mary Lavin’s immense talent

It is almost 63 years since Mary Lavin, remembered as one of Ireland’s best short story writers, dined with the Sunday Independent’s Panorama column, written by Fergus Wright. She told him of her plans to travel to continental Europe with her three daughters in a convertible Morris Minor and her nerves about driving through Paris.

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Joe Corcoran Opinion Bland Rooney marks death of the Irish novel

A case could be made that Sally Rooney is the greatest Irish novelist after Joyce and Beckett, and the only writer we have produced who deserves to be called their equal. It could even be argued that the three books she has published to date — a series of intelligent, bland stories about intelligent, bland young people struggling with the concept of love, while complex power dynamics rumble away in the background — represent the logical terminus of the Irish novel as such.

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The best books to read on your summer holidays

As the summer holiday season gets into full swing, our team of reviewers have book recommendations for all tastes, from fast-paced easy reads to some sizzling classics. Whether you’re heading to foreign shores or staying at home, there are the best reads to dive into.

Country Matters: Joycean wit no match for a Guinness-loving Toucan

‘To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower,” wrote the poet William Blake in Auguries of Innocence.

Colin Murphy Opinion 100 years after publishing Ulysses, how come James Joyce has never been cancelled?

This week, we will celebrate Ulysses — the novel in which a 38-year-old man masturbates on a beach in view of a young woman who may be a minor; the novel about a Jew written by a Catholic; the novel famous for its portrayal of the inner consciousness of a woman, written by a man.

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Ulysses was dangerous future blueprint for how Ireland might start to think for itself

One hundred years ago, amid the trauma of a new Irish State awkwardly being born, a small celebration occurred in Paris. There – despite obstacles that seemed almost as insurmountable as securing Ireland’s first instalment of freedom – James Joyce’s Ulysses was published on the author’s 40th birthday. His friend, Sylvia Beach, bravely established a publishing house just to see it into print.

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What happened when the baron’s daughter married hellraiser Richard Harris

At a party to ring in the New Year of 1961, Elizabeth Harris, the wife of actor Richard Harris, was introduced to film star, Marlon Brando, “an attractive, sensual man with eyes that seemed to look right into you” as she would later describe him . “Are you faithful to Richard?” Brando asked her.

My Cultural Life: Podcaster and historian Donal Fallon

Dublin historian and Three Castles Burning podcaster Donal Fallon is currently hosting RTÉ One’s Brainstorm, a new trivia TV series every Monday.

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Trieste offers up an odyssey into old-world delights

In the old-fashioned shop on Piazza Unità d’Italia where exquisite shoes, hats and unusual pieces of jewellery all compete for attention, my eye falls on a collection of colourful trilbys.

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John Downing Opinion The Irish pub can offer warmth and cheer, as I was reminded in Vienna this past week

My “favourite Irish pub” in Brussels, way back when, was run by a Moroccan Jew and his Danish girlfriend. I say favourite because it was – by a country mile – the most spurious, un-Irish hostelry I have ever encountered.

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My Life in Books: Nuala O’Connor

Nuala O’Connor, born in Dublin in 1970, lives in Co Galway. Her fifth novel NORA (Harper Perennial/New Island), about Nora Barnacle, was recently published to critical acclaim in the US, Ireland, Britain, and Germany, and is forthcoming in other languages. Named as a Top 10 2021 historical novel by the New York Times, it is also the One Dublin One Book choice for 2022. O’Connor is editor at flash fiction e-zine Splonk.

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TG4’s Finné is a harrowing but humane series putting personal testimonies front and centre

Finné TG4, Wednesday, 9.30pm 100 Years of Ulysses RTÉ One, Thursday, 10.15pm The Brontës: An Irish Tale BBC One, Tuesday, 10.35pm The Teacher Channel 5, Monday-Thursday, 9pm

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Red Princess gets the blues in Vesna Goldsworthy’s deft Cold War dramedy

Iron Curtain: A Love Story Vesna Goldsworthy Chatto & Windus, €18

James Joyce, Nora and the odyssey of upheaval that led to a masterpiece

On the morning of February 2, 1922, a Paris bookshop owner took delivery of two copies of its first published book.

Ulysses at 100: How to read the greatest novel of the 20th century

James Joyce was one of us, and the scandal of Ulysses is that it isn’t read more widely in his home country.

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John Downing Opinion As Joyce’s Ulysses ‘does the ton’, forget academic analysis and bring a copy to read in the pub

Back when many of us were still innocent and new to the “Big Schmoke”, we tried the “James Joyce challenge” of walking Dublin city from south to north without passing a pub. By late that afternoon – when walking was becoming a less likely option – we realised that we had not studied Joyce’s proposition properly.

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John Daly Opinion Ulysses at 100: An ageless guide to life’s rocky road

In this year of notable centenaries, it’s worth remembering that the Ireland of 1922 wasn’t all about desperate political divisions and unholy civil war ruptures. This week 100 years ago, an Irishman abroad produced something so remarkable it got the whole world talking – and they haven’t stopped since. Its name was Ulysses, and it pretty much changed the English language.