Bloomsday Film Festival 2025 celebrates James Joyce and cinema
This year's festival opens on 11th June, with an event at the James Joyce Centre; the programme includes a performance by the Giorgi Aleksidze Tbilisi Contemporary Ballet, music from David Keenan, and a set by Gramophone Dublin Social.
The event is presented in partnership with the Bloomsday Festival and the James Joyce Centre.
From Thursday 12 to Saturday 15 June, the main programme will run at the Belvedere Townhouse - the site of James Joyce's former school, Belvedere College - with screenings of 60 short films and features, ranging from stories about Dublin to films with Joycean, literary, poetic and experimental themes.
Festival highlights include Ulysses: A Magic Lantern Show, a theatrical presentation of scenes from Joyce's Ulysses using a restored Victorian-era magic lantern; devised by Jeremy and Carolyn Brooker, the performance features live narration and musical accompaniment.
A poetry film showcase titled Joyce's Universal City, features new poetry films with performances by Éanna Hardwicke and Olwen Fouéré, and a live performance from poet Stephen James Smith.
In collaboration with the Irish Film Institute, the festival will present A Volta CineConcert, a screening of seven short films originally shown at Joyce's own Volta Cinema in 1909. The programme is introduced by Joycean scholar Dr Keith Williams and early cinema historian Dr Denis Condon, with musician Morgan Cooke will provide live piano accompaniment.
Two feature films will be screened during the festival. Horrible Creature, directed by Áine Stapleton, explores the life of Lucia Joyce and challenges traditional narratives about her mental health. Songs of Blood and Destiny, directed by Trish McAdam, is based on Marina Carr's poem iGirl and stars Cathy Belton, Eileen Walsh and Brian Gleeson. Both films will be followed by Q&A sessions with the filmmakers.
Short films include The Secret Life of James Joyce, which revisits Joyce's life through imagined diary entries by Nora Barnacle, and 6.14, which explores creative life in Paris through the work of legendary photographer John Minihan.
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Irish Times
2 days ago
- Irish Times
Jung at Heart – Frank McNally on the Irish legacies of a Swiss psychologist
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One of that bunch was Elizabeth McCormack Rockefeller, a Jungian disciple and philanthropist who subsidised Joyce for a time, but wanted him to undergo analysis and suspended funding when he wouldn't. READ MORE Jung, for his part, believed Ulysses was evidence of the author's latent schizophrenia, which he also thought explained Joyce's heavy drinking. Asked to write the preface for a German edition, he suggested among other insults that the book could be as easily read backwards as forwards. When the publishers showed that to Joyce, according to biographer Richard Ellmann, he telegraphed back a terse response in German, 'Niedrigerhangen', meaning: 'Ridicule it by making it public' (yes, they have a word for that too). Jung later repented by publishing a more respectful version and, in a letter to Joyce, admitting that difficult as he found Ulysses to read, 'I'm profoundly grateful to yourself as well as to your gigantic opus, because I learned a great deal from it.' As for the author, family tragedy eventually forced him to relent in his scepticism enough to allow Jung treat his daughter Lucia for the actual schizophrenia with which she was diagnosed in her mid-20s. 'I wouldn't go to him, but maybe he can help her,' he wrote. Jung thought Lucia had the same madness as her father, without the genius to channel it, and famously likened them to two people going to the bottom of a river: one diving and the other drowning. Ellmann thought Jung was fundamentally wrong about Joyce's supposed self-medication against mental illness, in part because of his unfamiliarity with Irish drinking habits. 'It was not easy for Jung, who had been brought up in a 'fanatical anti-alcoholic tradition', to understand Joyce, whose rearing was diametrically opposite,' he wrote. The writer drank at night only, Ellmann pointed out, and with a combination of 'purpose and relaxation'. He enjoyed company but also used it to study human behaviour and to unburden himself of anxieties. In summary: 'He engaged in excess with considerable prudence.' By contrast with Joyce, Samuel Beckett had only one encounter with Jung, but it brought a shattering insight that changed his life. When he attended a lecture by Jung in 1934, it was at the suggestion of his psychiatrist Wilfred Rupert Bion, who had been treating Beckett for depression. Some of that related to an intense relationship with his mother, an austere woman from whom he inherited his tall, thin frame and hawk-like features, but not her narrow worldview. Relations between them were exacerbated by Beckett's apparent prenatal memories of a claustrophobic life in the womb. In the lecture, Jung recalled the sad case of a pre-teenage girl he had treated years before. She was troubled by recurrent dreams, which the psychologist thought (but didn't say) were premonitions of imminent death. And she did indeed die soon afterwards. But the bit that astounded Beckett was Jung's one-line summary, added as an afterthought. For Beckett, that explained a lot about his own life. Bion thought so too and went on to develop theories involving 'psychological birth' in the womb, a result of which was that 'biological birth did not necessarily bring mental separation from the mother'. Beckett gave up therapy the same year. But he often referred to Jung's story in conversation. And a 20 years later, he put it in the mouth of Maddy Rooney, the main character in his radio play All That Fall (which I had the strange experience a while back of hearing at Tullow Church, Foxrock, in the Beckett family pew, among a blindfolded audience). All That Fall is the most localised of his works, set along Brighton Road on a race day in nearby Leopardstown. Mrs Rooney goes to meet her blind husband off the train, which we later learn has been the scene of a tragedy involving a child, never explained. 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Irish Examiner
17-07-2025
- Irish Examiner
Joyce treasuring quiet nature of the farm before Croke Park cauldron
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Nor does he worry too much about whether he's playing at wing-back or at centre-back. 'The way we play, there's actually not much of a difference. We like to play in the opposition's face. And the way opponents are switching around the place, you could find yourself at six anyway for maybe 10 minutes of the game, and Rob could be at wing back. "So we enjoy playing anywhere in the half-back line really. And we've all played together a lot now. We're kind of learning new things and different calls. We're getting better and better at that, definitely.' There have been testing times. In the first quarter of the Munster final, Cian Lynch was probably the best player on the pitch. By the game's end though he had lost his own individual battle with Joyce. 'It was a big challenge. I've marked him a few times now and he's very hard to mark. He's intelligent, can strike well off both hands. But after those first couple of balls [Joyce lost], you just had to reset. 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The Irish Sun
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- The Irish Sun
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WHEN Hayley Rubery stumbled upon a £500 mouldy caravan on sale she decided to snap it up. While most people would be put off by its condition, Hayley, 34, decided that with a little TLC it would make the 7 Hayley Rubery bought a mouldy caravan for just £500 Credit: Hayley Rubery 7 Hayley shared how this wasn't the first caravan renovation she has completed Credit: Hayley Rubery 7 The caravan was outdated and hadn't been touched in years Credit: Hayley Rubery 7 She was able to transform it on a budget using TikTok shop and Amazon buys Credit: Hayley Rubery The 1989 Royce van was riddled with mould and was put on sale on Facebook Marketplace for just £500. Hayley decided the renovation would be easy as she had previously renovated another caravan she called Joyce. Now, Hayley spoke to Fabulous about the 'We actually bought our first caravan, which we named Joyce, last year,' Hayley explains. 'It was just a little two-berth, and we picked it up for £500. 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