JoyceSong

Fran O’Rourke (Singer)

John Feeley (Guitarist)

JoyceSong refers to the performance of traditional Irish songs that feature in the writings of James Joyce. It developed from the project in 2012 to restore the guitar once owned by James Joyce, which was donated by Joyce’s friend Paul Ruggiero to the Joyce Museum, Sandycove, in 1966. We have given performances with Joyce’s guitar in Newman House, the Joyce Tower, and Áras an Uachtaráin. We have performed at Clifden Arts Week, at Princeton University, and the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco. We have given recitals worldwide from Shanghai to San Diego. At the invitation of the Irish Embassy in Washington, we took part in celebrations for Bloomsday and the 150th anniversary of WB Yeats in 2015. We were invited by President Higgins to celebrate Bloomsday 2021 in Áras an Uachtaráin. 

We will give a concert, entitled “Songs from Joyce Country” in Tradfest, 25 January 2025, in Ardgillan Castle, north Co Dublin. 

Restoration of James Joyce’s guitar

I (FO’R) was invited by Professor David Spurr of Geneva University to sing some songs from the ‘Circe’ episode of Ulysses for his postgraduate seminar in April 2010. A generous and wonderful luthier, Jacques Vincenti, loaned him (free of charge and without even taking his name!) a very expensive guitar for the afternoon. When we spoke to him about James Joyce, he immediately took from his shelf a book on the history of the guitar which contained the famous photograph of Joyce with guitar taken by Ottocaro Weiss in 1915. As luck would have it, he had on his workbench at that very moment an identical guitar being repaired. There and then I decided that the guitar in the Tower should be restored to working condition.

With the support of Curator Robert Nicholson and approval of Fáilte Ireland restoration took place in the National Museum, Collins Barracks, in April 2012. Renowned instrument maker Gary Southwell carried out the work over four days in Collins Barracks, using facilities kindly provided by Head of Conservation, Rolly Read. We are most grateful to Dr Patrick Wallace, Director of the National Museum for his permission.

In June 2012 we performed a week of lunchtime concerts in the Physics Theatre of Newman House, which features in Joyce’s early work A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. A year later we gave a series of evening recitals in the Joyce Tower in Sandycove, the location for the opening scenes of Ulysses. The highlight was an evening shared with poet Paul Muldoon, a very special occasion in the company of our dear friend Seamus Heaney.

James Joyce and Irish Song

Joyce’s interest in classical music, especially opera, is well documented; less well known are the important allusions throughout his writings to songs from the Irish tradition. We want to show that Joyce was just as interested in the songs of the people; he was very democratic in all of his interests, particularly so in music and song. Joyce’s work is inconceivable without such songs as ‘Lass of Aughrim’, ‘Last Rose of Summer’, and ‘Croppy Boy’. These and other popular songs of the tradition are included in our programme. Also included are lesser known songs of significance such as ‘Who Goes With Fergus?’ and the forgotten air to which Joyce may have sung Yeats’ poem “Salley Gardens”. Oliver Goldsmith’s song “The Jolly Pigeons”, which Joyce taught to the actor who played Tony Lumpkin in his Zurich production of She Stoops to Conquer, and Joyce’s favourite Greek/French song are also part of our repertoire.

Inquiries:orourke@ucd.ie

Images of the guitar before and after restoration are available at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rginxjt0celgh41/dXvLaCiQTA?m