Dublin Dossier Pat Keenan on happenings in and around the capital
let his bones rest in exile, a place to visit and reflect on this sad era of our history. I have come to share his thoughts that when Ireland became independent, we were still a far way from being free. In Conversations with James Joyce (published by The Lilliput Press), again his friend Arthur Power quotes him: ‘..since the Free State came in there is less freedom. The Church has made inroads everywhere.. and I do not see much hope for us intellectually. Once the Church is in command she will devour everything.’ Ireland's religious censors rejected him and when he died the issue of repatriation was raised by Nora. Ireland's then Minister for External Affairs, Seán MacBride, who had facilitated the supposed repatriation of W.B Yeats, said no and hand wrote ‘No Action Required’ on the repatriation documents, after all, in 1949 Ireland was a Catholic state.
Book of Kells shelved until March Last year this Dubliner became one of the more than a million people who visited the must-see for tourists attraction, but not so urgent for the average Jackeen – ‘ah sure we know it's there’. Well, for a while, I'm afraid not. The Book of Kells is presently not on public display in Trinity College Dublin until March 2020. due to conservation works on the display area. A full colour replica will be put on display in its place in the library Long Room, and there will be a 15 per cent discount on tickets while the manuscript is in storage.
Talbot St James’ Joyce sculpture
Let Joyce’s bones rest in exile A motion to have the remains of James Joyce and his wife Nora Barnacle repatriated to Ireland was recently put forward by two Councillors of the Dublin City Council, anticipating the centenary in 2022 of the publication of Ulysses. The Joyces are buried with their son and his son in Fluntern Cemetery in the Zürichberg district of Zürich. And it is right and proper that they should continue to rest there. After all James and Nora self-exiled themselves from Dublin for many reasons but Dublin was then and always would be his core obsession. Talking to his friend, the artist/art critic Arthur Power he said: ‘For myself, I always write about
Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal’. So whether he was living in Zürich, Paris, Rome or Trieste or is dead in Zürich, his books are now freely available in Ireland, no longer banned, no longer regarded as obscene. Joyce is quintessentially Dublin, born, bred, educated and his writing source are the odd wits and varied characters walking its streets, and it is now and forever the city where he is fondly remembered by natives and 'runners-ins' from all round the world every Bloomsday. Keep in mind, the Dublin he left was not the free and easy Dublin we love and pride ourselves on today and this is why we should
Eight Irish novels nominated for Dublin Literary Award Eight novels from Ireland are among 156 books nominated by libraries around the world for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award. They are A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne, Milkman by Anna Burns, The Woman in the Woods by John Connolly, Begotten Not Made by Cónal Creedon, Orchid and the Wasp by Caoilinn Hughes, Skin Deep by Liz Nugent, Travelling in a Strange Land by David Park and Normal People by Sally Rooney The book that received most nominations was There There the first novel by a Cheyenne and Arapaho author Tommy Orange, exploring the range and depth of modern Native American
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