Season of Centenaries
- February – June 2022
On 2 February 1922, on his 40th birthday, James Joyce finally managed to publish his masterpiece Ulysses in Paris, not Dublin, where its ‘obscene’ and ‘anti-Irish’ content was considered too risky! 1922 is also most importantly the year Ireland finally gained independence in the shape of a Free State.
The CCI presents an ambitious season of exhibitions and projects celebrating these two centenaries.
CCI’s high-profile lecture series takes as its starting point the Paris 1922 Irish Race Congress which was intended by the fledgling State to present the grand narrative of Irish cultural achievement to a diasporic and international audience one hundred years ago. Three unmissable live evenings of debate see contemporary thinkers and activists give us their vision in Congress for Ireland 2022.
Take a look at our two interactive introductions about firstly, the birth of the Irish Free State in From a global conflict to a war of independence, and secondly, James Joyce's masterpiece, its publication and the scandal it caused at the time in Joyce in the City
Throughout the season, the CCI invites you to partake in the linguistic pleasure of Ulysses, even just by dipping in, with the entire text projected in our courtyard. Concerts, a theatre piece as well as evenings of international collaborations to explore the translation of Ulysses and Joyce’s European identity bring us up to Bloomsday in the courtyard on 16 June. On that day, dressing in 1904 garb and coming to listen to some of these famous words is quite simply de rigueur!
The CCI's Season of Centenaries is organised in conjunction with the Department of Foreign Affairs initiative States of Modernity: Forging Ireland in Paris 1922 | 2022.
Following Ulysses
From 2 February to 17 June
This exhibition by Deirdre Brennan in CCI's courtyard paints a photographic portrait of contemporary Dublin while evoking each chapter of James Joyce's masterpiece
Reading Ulysses
From 2 February to 17 June
From now until just after Bloomsday, you can watch and read the more than 265,000 words that make up James Joyce’s masterpiece as they appear in the LED display in CCI’s courtyard!
Do take a look at our partners' events and projects
Trinity College Dublin's 3D exhibition 'Seeing Ireland' is a wonderful way to experience Irish art and culture as it was exhibited to the world in Paris in January 1922. The Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) and Ulysses 100 websites are well worth checking out. For those in America, near Chicago, visit the University of Notre Dame's Snite Museum of Art exhibition 'Who Do We Say We Are? Irish Art 1922 | 2022'. Three conferences - in Rome, at the CCI in Paris and in Dublin - are presented this by the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, Universtity of Notre Dame: Global Ulysses.
