Writing Dublin

What makes a city a home, and why do its inhabitants so often dream of leaving? This six-session course explores Dublin through childhood memories, frustrated ambitions, revolutionary hopes and uneasy homecomings.

We'll begin with Elizabeth Bowen’s recollection of her Dublin childhood and James Joyce’s unforgettable stories of city life (especially 'Araby', 'Eveline', 'A Little Cloud' and 'The Dead'), before turning to Yeats’s poetry and O’Casey’s drama of the Easter Rising. Iris Murdoch’s The Red and the Green reveals the tensions between family feeling and political allegiance, while Robert Cremins’s A Sort of Homecoming takes us into a late-twentieth-century city shaped by new wealth and old attachments.

Along the way, Eavan Boland’s poems and Iris Murdoch’s short story 'Something Special' offer further perspectives on the city. Through close reading, maps, and visual material, we will consider who speaks for Dublin: what is remembered, and what is left unspoken.

Live online course with Dr Miles Leeson, Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre, University of Chichester.

Sundays, fortnightly, 10 October to 19 December 2027

18.00-20.00 British Time
19.00-21.00 Central European Time
Morning or lunchtime in the Americas

Lecture list

• Lecture 1. Remembering Dublin: Elizabeth Bowen, Seven Winters: Memoirs of a Dublin Childhood (1942)
• Lecture 2. Dreaming of Escape: James Joyce, Dubliners (1914)
• Lecture 3. Who Speaks for Dublin: Selected Poems of W. B. Yeats
• Lecture 4. Revolution from Below: Sean O'Casey, The Plough and the Stars (1926)
• Lecture 5. Divided Loyalties: Iris Murdoch, The Red and the Green (1965)
• Lecture 6. Coming Home: Robert Cremin, A Sort of Homecoming (2000)

Set Reading

Elizabeth Bowen, Seven Winters: Memoirs of a Dublin Childhood (1942)
James Joyce, Dubliners (1914)
Selected Poems of W. B. Yeats
Sean O'Casey, The Plough and the Stars (1926)
Iris Murdoch, The Red and the Green (1965)
Robert Cremin, A Sort of Homecoming (2000)

Optional Further Reading

James Hawes, The Shortest History of Ireland (2026)
John O’Beirne Ranelagh, A Short History of Ireland, third edition (CUP 2012)
Fintan O'Toole, A History of Ireland in 100 Objects (2013)

Course Fees (include 20% VAT)

Full price £320.00
CAMcard holder £290.00
Student on low income £290.00

To book, please click on the image below.