14 August 2024

The Museum of Literature
Ireland and Dublin’s
tributes to James Joyce
and so many other writers

The Museum of Literature Ireland is housed in Newman House on Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin, and backs onto the Iveagh Gardens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

As Charlotte and I were strolling through the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin last weekend, we were surprised to find the gate leading into the gardens of MoLI – the Museum of Literature Ireland.

The gardens are at the back of the Museum, which is housed at 86 Saint Stephen’s Green – this was Newman House, once a part of University College Dublin. The place still boasts that this is where James Joyce was a student, and the acronym MoLI was chosen as a wordplay on the name of Molly Bloom.

The museum is a digital, interactive celebration of Ireland’s literary legacy and of Irish poets, playwrights and novelists. It features immersive multimedia exhibitions and literary artefacts, including Joyce’s Ulysses notebooks and ‘Copy No 1’ of Ulysses, inscribed by Joyce for his patron Harriet Weaver, who donated it to the National Library of Ireland in 1952.

MoLI also hosts events and performances, creative workshops and education programmes. The changing exhibitions include one that features an in-depth look at one author at a time, while another looks at the connections between Irish literature and international cities.

Maeve Binchy’s words at the gate from the Iveagh Gardens leading into the Readers’ Garden behind the Museum of Literature Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The earliest piece in the museum collection is by a female author dating from ca 900 CE. Other work on display includes Joyce manuscript pages, some annotated, a letter from Joyce to William Butler Yeats and samples of Joyce’s notebooks.

The first of MoLI’s revolving exhibitions, in place for the opening, was on Kate O’Brien, and was followed by another on Nuala O’Faolain. Last year, MoLi marked the 100th anniversary of Brendan Behan’s birth, with ‘The Holy Hour’, an audiovisual installation reframing Behan’s life and work.

The museum is in two Georgian townhouses collectively known as Newman House, where the Catholic University of Ireland was founded in 1865, and also incorporates the original university Aula Maxima or Great Hall of UCD. Newman House remains part of UCD, although the university is now located in Belfield.

Newman House is not one but two restored townhouses. No 85, the granite-faced original house, was designed by Richard Cassels in 1738 for Hugh Montgomery MP, who sold it to Richard Chapel Whaley MP in 1765. But he wanted a grander home, and commissioned another house next door at No 86.

When Whaley lived there, the house developed some notoriety because of the lifestyle and reputation of his son, Buck Whaley, a notorious gambler and hellraiser.

The house is admired for Cassels’s architectural work, but its plasterwork is also known as the finest in Dublin. The artists at No 85 were the Italian stuccodores Paolo and Filippo Lafranchini, whose work includes the detailed Apollo Room on the ground floor. The plasterwork in No 86 is by the Irish stuccodore Robert West. When the Catholic University of Ireland took possession of the house in 1865, the alterations to some of the plasterwork included covering the nude figures with ‘modesty vests’.

A sculpture of a reading Jesuit in the Readers’ Garden behind the Museum … inspired by Gerard Manley Hopkins? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

While Newman House was part of the university, the residents included the Jesuit priest-poet Gerard Manley Hopkins who was Professor of Classics, from 1884 until he died. The students there included James Joyce from 1899 to 1902.

The museum is a partnership between the National Library of Ireland and UCD. Its origins are in a conversation at Bewley’s Café between Eamonn Ceannt, Bursar and Vice-President of UCD, and a representative of the National Library of Ireland, when they talked about a literary centre at Newman House began with a discussion.

The new museum was originally planned as an exposition of the work of James Joyce, to be known as the Ulysses Centre. But, after discussions with Failte Ireland, the concept was expanded to include Irish literature in general.

The Killarney Strawberry tree in the Readers’ Garden at the Museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The original plan was to open in the spring 2019, but because of the Covid-19 pandemic the launch was delayed and MoLI was finally launched on Culture Night, 20 September 2019. Meanwhile, the Dublin Writers Museum on Parnell Square had closed during the Covid-19 pandemic, and finally shut down in 2022 without ever reopening. Since then, many of its collections have been transferred to MoLI.

The Readers’ Garden, which we accessed from the Iveagh Gardens on Saturday morning, includes the café courtyard, secluded places to read, a sculpture of a reading Jesuit – inspired, perhaps, by Gerard Manley Hopkins – and two protected trees: the ash tree where James Joyce had his graduation photograph taken and a Killarney Strawberry tree.

The museum café, the Commons, opens onto the Readers’ Garden, and is run by Peaches and Domini Kemp. Beside it is the museum shop.

Marjorie Fitzgibbon’s 1982 bronze bust of James Joyce in Saint Stephen’s Green faces Newman House and MoLI (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Across from Newman House, on the south side of Saint Stephen’s Green, Marjorie Fitzgibbon’s 1982 bronze bust of James Joyce faces his alma mater. It is mounted on a tall square-plan limestone plinth inscribed with carved painted lettering: ‘James Joyce 1882-1941 Crossing Stephen’s, that is, my green …’ Joyce’s bust is part of a significant group within the Green, including Constance Markievicz, Arthur Guinness, Theobald Wolfe Tone and Rabindranath Tagore.

Earlier that morning, I had come across a more recent image of James Joyce nearby, side-by-side with Nora Barnacle in street art near the end of Dawson Street and close to the Nassau Street gate of Trinity College Dublin. ‘Love loves to love love’ was painted last year (2023) by the artist Andrew McCarthy, who was also the head designer of the new National Transport Livery for TFI.

James Joyce met Nora Barnacle from Galway for the first time on 10 June 1904 while walking down Nassau Street. They had their first date on 16 June 1904, now celebrated as Bloomsday, and she would become his wife and muse and the inspiration for the character of Molly Bloom in Ulysses.

Dublin can never get enough of James Joyce.

‘Love loves to love love’ … James Joyce and Nora Barnacle by Andrew McCarthy near the Nassau Street gate of Trinity College Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024:
96, Wednesday 14 August 2024

‘If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven’ (Matthew 18: 19) … the Cross of Nails in Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers the life and witness of Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941), Franciscan friar and Martyr in Auschwitz.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘Go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone’ (Matthew 18: 15) … the sculpture ‘Reconciliation’ by Josephina da Vasconcellos in Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 18: 15-20 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 15 ‘If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. 16 But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector. 18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’

Dave Walker’s cartoon in the ‘Church Times’ last weekend (9 August 2024) following a week of far-right riots in England

Today’s Reflection:

In this morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 18: 15-20), Christ has just told the parable of the lost sheep, and how the shepherd goes in search of the one that goes astray, and rejoices over finding it (Matthew 18: 10-14).

So now, how should the Church respond to one member who has gone astray or who sins against other members of the Church?

The first response is to try taking that person aside to point out their fault. But that person should not be humiliated in front of others, and this should be done alone.

However, if you are not listened to, one or two others should be asked to be present as witnesses.

If the person still refuses to listen, the matter should be brought before the whole assembly of the Church, the ekklesia.

If the offender refuses to listen even to the Church, then, as a final sanction, that person should be treated as an unworthy outsider.

Christ then says that ‘you’ – the whole assembly of the Church, the ekklesia – have the authority to bind or condemn, to loose or to acquit, as if this is a decision that has divine authority.

Finally, Christ tells us that he is present in common prayer, study, and in decision-making, even when only two or three members of the Church are present. Christ is to be found in community.

There are only two places in all the four Gospels where Christ uses the word for the Church that is found in this Gospel reading, the word εκκλησία (ekklesia): the first time is in Matthew 16: 18, when Christ relates the Church to a confession of faith by the Apostle Peter, the rock-solid foundational faith of Saint Peter, which we heard about last week [8 August 2024].

His second use of this word is not once but twice in one verse in this reading (Matthew 18: 17).

It is a peculiar word for Christ to use, and yet he only speaks of the Church in these terms on these two occasions.

In total, the word εκκλησία appears 114 times in the New Testament (four verses in the Acts of the Apostles, 58 times by Saint Pauline in his epistles, twice in the Letter to the Hebrews, once in the Epistle of James, three times in III John, and in 19 verses in the Book of Revelation). But Christ only uses the word twice, in these incidents in Saint Matthew’s Gospel.

How does Christ define the Church?

What makes up and defines the Church?

And why, throughout the Gospels, does Christ use this word to describe the Church only twice?

During the pandemic shutdown, when many of our church buildings remained closed, many of us comforted ourselves with phrases such as ‘the church is not a building’ and ‘people make the church.’

The Irish language expresses this in a different way. The Irish word eaglais, which comes from this same word εκκλησία, is usually used for a church building, although the word teampaill is used too, and eaglais is also used for the Church as institution, so that the Church of Ireland is called Eaglais na hÉireann in Irish.

But when referring to the Church as the people, the Irish language uses the phrase Pobal Dé, the ‘People of God.’

The English word ‘church’ we use in everyday English can be traced through Old English (cirice) and Old High German (kirihha) to a Greek word κυριακόν (kuriakón), that simply means ‘of the Lord.’

But the word εκκλησία (ekklesia) does not mean ‘belonging to the Lord.’ Even if that is implied, the word is different.

The word Christ uses in this reading, εκκλησία, means ‘called out,’ an assembly of people that is involved in social life, religion and government.

This word εκκλησία goes all the way back to classical Athens, when the city assembly or εκκλησία consisted of all the citizens who had kept their civil rights. From ca 300 BC, the ekklesia met in the Theatre of Dionysus, beneath the slopes of the rock of the Acropolis.

The powers of the εκκλησία were almost unlimited. It met three or four times a month, and it elected and dismissed judges, directed the policy of the city, declared war and made peace, negotiated and ratified treaties and alliances, chose generals and raised taxes.

It was a city assembly in which all members had equal rights and duties, and all citizens took part, regardless of class or status. It had the final say.

When Christ is talking about the church as εκκλησία then, he is talking about all the members of the church community, who have equal rights, equal power, equal duties and an equal and respected say in what is going on.

Baptism makes us all equal, without discrimination, in the Church.

And the Holy Communion, the Eucharist, is the lived continuation of our Baptism.

There is only one Body of Christ, and so there is only one Baptism and only one Eucharist.

For the Apostle Paul, the Church is one body, the Body of Christ, where there is no discrimination among those who are baptised and who share in the sacramental mysteries (see I Corinthians 12: 12-13 and Ephesians 1: 22-23).

And what Christ does in this Gospel reading is not to give power to the Church but to warn us as the Church about the power we already have as the εκκλησία and the consequences of how we use that power.

A few verses earlier, in yesterday’s Gospel reading (see verses 10-13), Christ reminds us not to despise the little ones, to go after the one sheep from among the 99 that might go astray, to make sure that not even one of the little ones is left to be lost.

Now he tells us that in the Church there is no room for us to refuse to talk to one another, to bear grudges, to refuse to listen to one another.

And he warns us against the real dangers of trying to use the powers that the Church has in the wrong way.

In the culture and context of the Greek-speaking world of the East Mediterranean, people would know that the εκκλησία, this very particular type of assembly, had the last and final say.

For Christ to say that what the Church approves of or disapproves of has implications of the highest order is not Christ endowing the Church with supernatural powers. Rather, it is warning us of making decisions, going in directions, exercising discrimination, in the Church that will have not merely temporal and worldly but also eternal and spiritual consequences.

There can be no petty divisions in the Church, if we are to be true to the meaning of Baptism and the Eucharist which form and sustain us in one body, the Body of Christ. And the Church has to be a haven for those who are the victims of division, discrimination and disaster. Our haven can be their heaven.

When we discriminate against others, the consequences are not just for them, or even for us, but for the whole Church.

In the US, many megachurch and evangelical leaders are supporting Donald Trump’s campaign for re-election and yet are hauntingly silent when it comes to his bullying, illegality and corruption, to racism, to the plight of refugees, the rise of Islamophobia and antisemitism, and to other pressing issues such as climate change. In those instances, that part of the Church that claims the moral high ground is being found to be morally impoverished.

In recent weeks, there have been riots across England fomented by people who are racist and who discriminate against people who need our compassion and support, and faith leaders have been quick to make their voices heard.

Against this background, Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury made an important intervention earlier this week (12 August 2024) when he wrote in the Guardian saying Christians cannot be part of any far-right group ‘because they are unchristian.’ He condemned the use of Christian imagery by rioters as exploitation and ‘an offence to our faith, and all that Jesus was and is’.

‘Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven’ (Matthew 18: 18) … paper or origami chains in the shape of cranes, a Japanese symbol of peace and reconciliation, in Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 14 August 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Whom Shall I Send?’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from the Revd Davidson Solanki, Regional Manager Asia and Middle East, USPG, on the Episcopal Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East’s new programme launched in accompaniment with USPG, ‘Whom Shall I Send.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 14 August 2024) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for Archbishop Hosam Naoum and all Christian leaders in the Episcopal Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East as they faithfully serve their communities and work towards peace and reconciliation.

The Collect:

O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated that one true sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace:
by our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
the end of our searching,
help us to lay aside
all that prevents us from seeking your kingdom,
and to give all that we have
to gain the pearl beyond all price,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ.

The ekklesia in classical Athens met in the Theatre of Dionysus, beneath the slopes of the Acropolis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

The cell where Father Maximilian Kolbe was held in Auschwitz … he is commemorated in the calendar of the Church of England on 14 August (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)