Literary Journeys

Exploring the paths that literature opens

Tag: Dublin

A Song from the Past: Joyce, Music, and Memory

Music in James Joyce’s The Dead

The work of James Joyce is full of music. It is not used only as decoration, but also as a way to express hidden feelings and inner emotions. This is especially clear in the short story The Dead, where Joyce uses the song The Lass of Aughrim to give deeper meaning to the narrative.

James Joyce Tower, Sandycove, Dublin

Every year, at the beginning of January, I return to both the story and its film adaptation with a feeling of nostalgia. It is a deeply personal story about love, loss and identity, which T. S. Eliot called one of the greatest short stories ever written. When I listen to the old Irish ballad, I often reread the final, most beautiful paragraph of the story. It always fills me with wonder and deep emotion, and it moves me every time. This passage also has a musical quality, as its gentle rhythm and softly flowing melody create an atmosphere of silence, sadness and reflection, bringing the story to a close.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

James Joyce, The Dead

Glendalough, Co. Wicklow, Ireland

Music is present throughout the entire story, from Italian opera to popular folk songs. Singing, dancing and playing music create the background of the Christmas party, while conversations at the table refer to famous singers and the musical life of Dublin. All of this slowly leads the reader towards the emotional centre of the story.

James Joyce Centre, Dublin

The Lass of Aughrim in the Story

The song The Lass of Aughrim, heard almost by chance after the party, is not just background music. It becomes a voice from the past that suddenly enters the present. For Gretta Conroy, the song brings back the memory of her first love, Michael Furey, a young man who once sang this song for her and who died tragically young. This memory reveals how strong and sincere that love was, and it clearly contrasts with the emotional distance in her marriage. The past feels more alive and more real than her quiet everyday life.

James Joyce Centre, Dublin

The song is also essential for her husband, Gabriel, as it leads him to a moment of deep understanding. He realises how empty his emotional life is and understands that the dead can have more power over the living than those who live without strong feelings. In this way, The Lass of Aughrim brings together the main themes of the story – memory, love and death – and leads to a sad, quiet ending that invites deep reflection on human life.

* * *

Let the music invite quiet reflection as we listen, accompanied by the restored guitar that once belonged to Joyce himself.

See also: The House of the Dead & Music in the Works of James Joyce

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11/01/2026
The Gravediggers: Joyce’s Dublin Between Life and Death

Glasnevin Cemetery – Dublin’s national necropolis

Glasnevin Cemetery is Dublin’s national necropolis and one of the city’s most important literary landscapes. It is a place where memory, history, and everyday life meet – right beside The Gravediggers pub.

Established in 1832, Glasnevin is the final resting place of over a million people, including many important cultural and political figures from Ireland. It is therefore not only a burial ground, but also a place of national memory.

Glasnevin Cemetery also has personal meaning in the life of James Joyce. His parents, John Stanislaus Joyce and Mary Jane ‘May’ Joyce, are buried there, which adds a more intimate, family dimension to the writer’s connection with the place and the city.

The Gravediggers pub – history at the gates of Glasnevin Cemetery

Right next to one of the cemetery gates is a pub with the charming name ‘The Gravediggers’, founded by John Kavanagh in 1833. Kavanagh had a knack for business, because not only did he open a bar that attracted mourners and served the gravediggers who worked at the cemetery, but he also bought the land around it to prevent any potential competition in the immediate vicinity.

The pub is named after the cemetery workers who were so keen to use its services. So keen that the main gate was eventually moved to another location, and a special window was made in the pub’s wall through which gravediggers could order beer by knocking on it with a shovel. Today, the pub’s guests are mostly tourists visiting the cemetery.

The Gravediggers pub

Between literature and everyday life

However, James Joyce does not mention The Gravediggers in his famous novel Ulysses although one of the characteristic scenes – the funeral of Paddy Dignam (Episode 6, Hades) – takes place in Glasnevin Cemetery.

The O’Connell circle, Mr Dedalus said about him. (…)

Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland’s hearts and hands. (…)

How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed. As you are now so once were we. (…)

The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again. Enough of this place. (…)

Thank you. How grand we are this morning!

James Joyce, Ulysses

In the pub itself, part of the action of the novel Dublinesque by the Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas takes place.

The story follows Samuel Riba, a retired Spanish publisher who loves books and worries about the decline of the literary world. He travels to Dublin with a few friends to hold a mock funeral for the ‘Gutenberg era’ – the age of printed books – inspired by Ulysses and the work of James Joyce.

While in Dublin, they visit real places linked to Ulysses, including ‘The Gravediggers’. Vila-Matas uses the pub as both a real setting and a symbol – a place between life and death, past and present – which suits a story about endings: of people, books, and times gone by.

All photographs by the author.

For another Joyce-related place in Dublin, visit The House of the Dead: A Joyce Literary Landmark in Dublin

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28/10/2025
The House of the Dead: A Joyce Literary Landmark in Dublin

From Georgian townhouse to literary icon

15 Usher’s Island in Dublin, Ireland, is a classic Georgian townhouse overlooking the River Liffey. It’s an important part of literary history. In the late 1800s, the house was home to the grand-aunts of writer James Joyce, who also ran a music school there. Their home later became the setting for one of Joyce’s most famous stories, The Dead, the last one in his collection, Dubliners.

Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet. Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat when the wheezy hall-door bell clanged again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another guest. It was always a great affair, the Misses Morkan’s annual dance. Everybody who knew them came to it, members of the family, old friends of the family, the members of Julia Morkan’s choir, any of Kate Morkan’s pupils that were grown up enough, and even some of Mary Jane’s pupils too.

The Dead takes place during a Christmas party at 15 Usher’s Island. The main characters, Gabriel Conroy and his wife Gretta, attend the yearly dinner held by Gabriel’s aunts. The evening features music and a discussion on politics. As they prepare to leave, Gabriel sees Gretta standing quietly on the stairs, deep in thought. A song from the party has brought back memories of her youth…

This story made the house a well-known literary location, though in later years it was often empty or used by squatters.

In 1987, director John Huston used the house’s exterior in his film version of The Dead.

A scene from John Huston’s film The Dead

A brief revival of Joyce’s world…

Around 2000, Brendan Kilty, a barrister and passionate Joycean, purchased 15 Usher’s Island and lovingly restored the house as a tribute to James Joyce’s The Dead. His vision was to revive the spirit of the story’s famous dinner scene, hosting gatherings and events that celebrated Dublin’s literary heritage. For a time, the house stood as a living museum of Joyce’s world – filled with music, conversation, and echoes of the past. However, financial difficulties eventually forced Kilty into bankruptcy in 2012, and the house was sold by receivers in 2017.

The drawing-room was filled with so many guests that the young men, unable to find chairs, had to stand about in groups near the piano. The middle of the room was occupied by a large square piano and a tall mirror above the mantelpiece reflected the gas flames, making the room bright and warm.

…then left waiting for its future

For many people in Dublin, the house still feels like a part of Joyce’s world. When there were plans to turn it into a tourist hostel, writer Colm Tóibín and others objected, saying it was too important culturally. Unfortunately, their appeal didn’t succeed.

Whatever the future holds for 15 Usher’s Island, The Dead has left its mark here. The house now faces a bridge named after Joyce, linking Usher’s Island with Blackhall Place on the north side of the river. The bridge opened on Bloomsday in 2003.

All photographs by the author.

For a further exploration of this theme in Joyce’s work, see A Song from the Past: Joyce, Music, and Memory

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17/10/2025