Performed by Ellen Demos, Paul Roe and Shane O’Donovan

The James Joyce Centre is delighted to host the last of three performances of celebrated composer Stephen Gardner’s Ulysses Extended on Wednesday 13 June. In this musical work, certain passages from James Joyce’s Ulysses are interpreted by a trio of Ellen Demos on vocals, Paul Roe on bass clarinet/clarinet and Shane O’Donovan on percussion. Throughout the work, Joyce’s words will be ‘extended’ into other sounds, both vocal and instrumental, with Gardner’s score serving as a springboard for various avenues of improvisation. The performance will last for approximately 35 minutes, with a brief wine reception beginning at 7.30pm and music commencing from 8pm.

Stephen Gardner was born in Belfast and studied at the Universities of Ulster and Wales. His works have been performed and broadcast worldwide. Recent compositions have been for The Crash Ensemble, The Ulster Orchestra and Te Deum Adoramus choir in Sofia. He was elected as a member of Aósdana in 2003.

Whiskey flows through Joyce’s works, from the stories of ‘The Sisters’ and ‘Counterparts’ to the life-giving elixir at the heart of Finnegans Wake. In fact, so central was it to his last work that, when proposing the ill-conceived notion of having fellow novelist James Stephens finish Finnegans Wake as his health declined, Joyce quipped that it would be apt to have "J J and S" under the title – a reference to one of Dublin’s most famous whiskey distillers, John Jameson & Sons. Whiskey also had an important historical and biographical significance for Joyce, whose father was secretary of the Dublin and Chapelizod Distillery Co and whose maternal grandfather John Murray once acted as sales representative for Powers.

Join us on this special jaunt around the capital’s bars to celebrate the many allusions to distilleries and whiskey in Joyce’s works whilst discovering Dublin’s rich whiskey culture. This two-hour tour will be led by a local expert and features stops at three Irish pubs where you can sample two unique Irish whiskeys and sample some delicious tasting plates of local food.

Joyce once referred to Dublin as the "centre of paralysis", a city that he felt was backward and repressive in contrast to the modern capitals of Europe. This idea found its expression in Dubliners, a short story collection that illustrates the effects of this restrictive atmosphere on the city’s population. Join our guide on a walk that visits some of the key locations from both the collection and the author’s life, discussing all the while Joyce’s critical portrayal of the social, religious and political landscape of his home town. This tour also gives some insight into the publication history of the collection, itself a story that creates a sense of Joyce’s artistic mission and his controversial approach to writing about Dublin. This tour ends at O’Connell Bridge.

Celebrate the birthday of Irish poet W.B. Yeats with this very special walking tour focusing on his tumultuous relationship with the young James Joyce. James Joyce and W.B. Yeats are indisputably the two most recognisable and pivotal figures of twentieth-century Irish literature. Though contemporaries, they represent very different cultural, religious, political and artistic traditions, each playing a distinct role in the history of Irish art. While the elder Yeats emerged from an Anglo-Irish Protestant background and committed himself to the idea of the Irish nation, Joyce emerged from the newly assertive generation of middle class Catholics and went on to reject nationalist politics in favour of the pursuit of artistic independence. Despite their differences, the relationship that existed between Joyce and Yeats was highly significant, oscillating from oedipal struggle and dismissal to mutual respect and active support. Join our guide on a tour that traces this relationship through the streets of the city, visiting such sites of interest as the Abbey Theatre, the GPO and the National Library. This tour ends at Merrion Square.

Joyce lived most of his life outside Dublin, but there is hardly a village or street in the city that doesn’t have some link to the author and his sprawling works. His unsettled family life meant that he moved address frequently in his adolescent years and his portrait of the city in works like Ulysses was so comprehensive that he once claimed that "if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of (his) book". Join us for this half-day bus trip from Dublin’s epicentre to the stunning coastline, trace the steps of Joyce and his characters and learn all about the author’s links to the different areas of the city in the company of our local guide.

You'll take in Portobello and the city's former Jewish quarter, stop by Joyce's birthplace in Rathgar, take your lunch in the beautiful village of Sandycove and head to the James Joyce Tower & Museum before returning to the city via Sandymount Strand.