CAROLINE WALSH's weekly column on literature
The Dead back to life
Is there anything more redolent of New Year festivities than Joyce's story The Deadand the Misses Morkan's party on Dublin's Usher's Island. Now it's at the heart of a multimedia project created by his old alma mater, UCD.
The project features a series of six audio podcasts called Joyce's Dublin: An Exploration of The Dead, presented by actor Barry McGovern. It, and a sister microsite, showcase Joyce's work, and highlight the Joyce collections in UCD's archives, the National Library and the National Archive.
The podcasts explore themes in The Deadand feature academics at the college, including Gerardine Meaney, Declan Kiberd, Anne Fogarty, Harry White, Mary Daly and Luca Crispi.
The final one is a walking tour of Dublin, narrated by McGovern, which traces a map from 15 Usher’s Island, where the story is set, along the Liffey to the Gresham Hotel on O’Connell Street, where it closes.
The story contains what are among the best known lines in literature. “Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried.”
The series, and accompanying website, has been created by Athena Media, the digital media company led by Helen Shaw, and was commissioned by the Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive. It also explores what the National Archives census returns of 1901 and 1911 reveal about Joyce and his family. With the haunting rendition of the song The Lass of Aughrimat the heart of the story, appropriately one edition deals with the music of The Dead with examples from the UCD folklore collection.
The series is available through joycesdublin.ie and can also be accessed through ucd.ie
RTÉ story prize turns 25
RTÉ’s Seamus Hosey isn’t exaggerating when he says the long-running Francis MacManus Short Story Competition has been at the heart of keeping the Irish short story tradition vibrant and exciting. Next year the competition celebrates its 25th anniversary, for which it’s had 1,200 entries. That’s an increase of 30 per cent on last year, making Hosey wonder if people are taking up the pen instead of the sword in the fight for survival in the tough times we live in. The shortlist will be announced towards the end of April, the winners a week later.
To celebrate their quarter century they’re broadcasting five stories from last year’s competition during Late Date, just after 11pm on RTÉ Radio 1, the week beginning Monday, January 4th.
Costa prize on the rise
Irish novelist Josephine Hart will chair the judging panel for the overall winner of the 2009 Costa Book of the Year Award. The panel, announced this week, also consists of writer and model Marie Helvin; Irish actor Dervla Kirwan; actor Caroline Quentin; musician, actor and writer Gary Kemp; ITV News political editor Tom Bradby; actor and writer Neil Pearson; journalist Tom Fleming; and authors Sandra Howard, Robert Lacey and William Nicholson.
Two Irish novelists, Colm Tóibín and Peter Murphy, and the late Siobhan Dowd, the children's author with an Irish background, all feature on shortlists among the five categories for the awards. The winners of each category – announced on January 5th – then go head to head for the overall prize , worth £30,000 (about €33,660), an increase of £5,000 from 2008: The winner of this big one is announced on January 26th. Last year's overall prize went to Irish novelist Sebastian Barry for The Secret Scripture. costabookawards.com
