Joyce described The Dead as a ghost story. The ghost of Michael Furey, who as Gretta says ‘died for me’ haunts the final scenes. But the story also echoes with the ghosts of Irish history and politics. Professor Kevin Whelan peels back the layers and references from the Battle of the Boyne, the 1798 rebellion, O’Connell’s Catholic Emancipation, Parnell’s Home Rule and the tension in early 20th Century Ireland between the emerging Gaelic Nationalist movement and the Catholic middle classes. Social historian Mary Daly places the story in its contemporary politics and illuminates what is going on behind the dance scene between Gabriel and Molly Ivors when her final retort is ‘West Briton’. We look at the physical landscape of the story and the map it draws from the Wellington Monument to the O’Connell statue and the tensions between east and west both for the characters and the country. What is Joyce telling us? The past is ever present in The Dead and the party itself takes on a wake like quality not just for a marriage but for a city as well. Dr Luca Crispi, working on the Joyce papers at the National Library, shows how the manuscripts illuminate how Joyce wrote.

We start at 15 Usher’s Island, the house at the centre of the Misses Morkan’s Epiphany dinner party on January 6th 1904. Set in a Dublin of 300,000 souls, on a bitter cold night, we are looking out across the river to the west to the Phoenix Park and to the east towards the Four Courts. As the story begins, Lily, the over-worked housemaid, opens the door. What does the story tell us about Dublin in 1904? Professor Mary Daly helps us step back in time while Professor Kevin Whelan connects The Dead to Dublin’s history, geography and landscape. What do the archives hold and tell us about not just Joyce’s Dublin but also about his own life story? We visit the National Archives and the census records of 1901 with Catriona Crowe while Katherine McSharry opens the National Library collection. Architect Sean O’Laoire helps us imagine Joyce’s Dublin and shares the story of the house itself 15 Usher’s Island.