THE CHAMPAGNE corks had barely fallen silent on January 1st and James Joyce was already taking up headlines and column inches.
In 2012, the focus has been on the lifting of EU copyright restrictions, allowing publication and performance of all his major works for free. Those familiar with the author will know the first week of the year has a direct link to Joyce. Events of The Dead, his masterful bookend story in Dubliners, takes place on January 6th.
Joyce probably chose the date deliberately. As well as being Nollaig na mBan (a day when women traditionally took a rest from housework), January 6th is the date of the Epiphany. Given his contempt for the Catholicism of his time, it is likely Joyce was referring to his own extrapolation of the word as much as the Christian feast day.
In The Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, Stephen speaks about moments of epiphany, which Joyce equated with moments of spiritual revelation. He later explained to his brother Stanislaus that epiphanies were "little errors and gestures – mere straws in the wind – by which people betrayed the very things they were most careful to conceal".
The explanation mused over by Stephen was carefully transposed onto all of the stories in Dubliners.The Dead's central characters, Gabriel Conroy and his wife Gretta, who laments the memory of a dead love, attend the story's centrepiece dinner. The lavish feast takes place at the home of the Misses Morkans.
Tonight, what is considered one of literature’s most famous meals will be recreated in Dublin’s Gresham Hotel. Organised jointly by Sweny’s pharmacy (now run as a Joycean cultural centre) and the James Joyce Centre, the event has attracted huge interest.
“Last year, we held it in two places because we had a capacity of 50. We had 25 people for food in Sweny’s, while another 25 watched the film version of The Dead in a private cinema – and then we swapped around. This year, we wanted to do something bigger,” says Wendy Conroy of Sweny’s.
Sweny's pharmacy is mentioned in Ulysses(where Leopold Bloom buys a bar of lemon soap), but the closing pages of The Deadtake place in the Gresham. No less than 150 guests are expected there tonight for the sold-out event and will dine on the same food as in the story.
Joyce’s story menu is simple, but ambitious: “Goose, ham, spiced beef . . . two little minsters of jelly, red and yellow; a shallow dish full of blocks of blancmange and red jam . . . Purple raisins and peeled almonds, Smyrna figs, custard topped with grated nutmeg, a bowl of chocolates . . . oranges, American apples . . . with port, dark sherry, stout, ale and minerals.”
“For cost reasons we’re providing turkey, not goose, but everything else will be the same – except the cigars,” laughs Conroy.
She recalls that the specific food choices in the story had their origin in a vivid memory of Joyce’s. “When he and Nora Barnacle went to live in Trieste, they were a young, married couple, far from home, with no money. They spent their first Christmas Day in bed, and daydreamed about the food they would eat if they could afford a big feast.”
The Dead Dinner will also echo several events of the story, from being welcomed by Gabriel Conroy's maiden aunts to a rendition of Arrayed for the Bridal, sung by the Shannon Colleens (Sinéad Murphy and Darina Gallagher, who frequently perform their own Songs of Joyce shows).
The singing of The Lass of Aughrimfalls to singer Noel O'Grady, who has an interest in Joyce's own musical past. "He was a very accomplished singer and a contemporary of Count John McCormack. Both shared a music tutor, and while Joyce's voice didn't have the volume, it certainly had the quality. I have a light, lyrical tenor voice and so did Joyce, so he intrigues me."
In the story, a tenor, Bartell D’Arcy, sings the plaintive song in a room upstairs as Gabriel’s wife Gretta listens, lost in thought, on the stairs. The “off-stage” aspect of Gabriel’s song is quite theatrical, almost operatic. “Bartell D’Arcy is hoarse when he sings the song, and he’s invisible, which echoes Michael Fury’s death,” says O’Grady. “Joyce was brilliant at placing music in specific places in his books. He knew that presenting such a simple song that way would have that very effect.”
Much of O'Grady's work is linked to Irish literature, including writers such as John B Keane and Patrick Kavanagh. He has sung The Lass of Aughrimin Moscow and Berlin at Joyce-related events, including a dinner in 2004, the centenary year of Ulysses. The venue was the Georgian house at 15 Usher's Island, Dublin, where the original musical gathering of the story takes place.
Owner Brendan Kilty has long been fascinated by the house and its connection to Dublin literary history. “I decided in the 1970s that one day I would buy the house at Usher’s Island. I just knew it would come my way, and in 2000 it finally did.”
Far from the Georgian grace of the story, the house was in a poor state by then, housing drug addicts who slept rough. It had no roof, no top floor and a back wall on the brink of collapse. “All I wanted to do was to restore it to its original condition and recreate the famous dinner from Joyce’s story. I got great support from the late Arden Gantly, who worked as an artistic director on John Huston’s 1987 film version. He explained what they’d done on the set of the film, and while it was helpful to replicate elements, we were careful of just presenting a Hollywood interpretation.”
Kilty admits to spending a “black hole” of money in his efforts to restore the house, and that scaffolding was still up when the dinner took place on January 6th, 2004. “We had original tea urns and Georgian cutlery loaned to us by a lady with a significant collection. I was delighted that our guest of honour was Josie MacAvin, who was set decorator on the Huston film version. While we had 100 people for dinner, it was very informal, but people dressed in period costume. There were a lot of white bow ties.”
Sweny’s hosts regular cultural events, many connected to Joyce. Privately funded, the former pharmacy is staffed by volunteers. Those with tickets for the dinner will enjoy the vintage frocks and hair feathers, and for those who do not there’s a reading of the story open to all today at 1pm in Sweny’s at Lincoln Place.
The snow will not be "general all over Ireland" tonight, while galoshes will be in short supply. Will the Sweny's event preach to the converted or attempt to win new fans? "There has always been an elitism associated with Joyce that we really want to get rid of," says Wendy Conroy. "We often refer to our interpretation as 'James Joyce Light' or 'Ladybird James Joyce', but it's only because we want people to realise how accessible Joyce is as a writer, particularly with Dubliners.Last year, we had a lot of couples, so it ended up being quite a romantic evening. Everybody dressed up, they sang songs, and they learnt the dances. It proved that Joyce could be fun.
"This year, all the table names will be stories from Dubliners, and it's sold out – which proves the interest is there."
