Conference: Art Without Borders – Cultural Exchange and Influence in Irish History

5th October 2012, Trinity College Dublin, Long Hub Room

This richly diverse one day symposium at Trinity College Dublin will address the theme of cross-cultural exchange in Irish Art, architecture and material culture, exploring topics including Irish-American exchange, cultural communication between Ireland and China, and the impact of architecture and town planning in the 19th and 20th centuries . The central aim is to explore the theme of influence, both outward and inward, on art in Ireland from the pre-Christian to the Contemporary. The full programme for the day – which includes a keynote address from Sian Rainbird, Director of the National Gallery of Ireland – can be found at the Art Without Borders website, as can full details for registration (registration is essential, although the event is free, and must be recieved by Friday 21st September).

Exhibition: James Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’ – The City as Character

National Gallery of Ireland, 4 April – 15th July

This exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland brings together sixteen atmospheric works from the Gallery’s collection. It features paintings and watercolours by Walter Osborne, Rose Barton, Jack B. Yeats and William Orpen which give a sense of the city of Dublin as a character in itself. The fifteen short stories in James Joyce’s Dubliners depict a down-at-heel city populated by frustrated citizens. Most of the stories were written in Trieste around 1905, although ‘The Dead’ was finished in 1907. The rough language and allusions to sexual activity contained in a number of the stories meant that potential publishers shied away from it. On May 5, 1906 Joyce wrote to the London publisher Grant Richards defending his refusal to compromise his text and