Ireland should come back to Ballyjamesduff

Parnell Summer School: Ireland needs to look to Ballyjamesduff and Ballaghaderreen as much as it does to Boston or Berlin, the Parnell Summer School has been told.

Dr Derek Hand of the English department at St Patrick's College in Drumcondra, Dublin, said that at the beginning of the last century Ireland looked to Britain, and now it was looking to "old Europe or new America".

A century ago, the focus was political, rather than economic. "The situation is reversed now," the academic told his audience at Avondale, Co Wicklow, Parnell's home. "It is all about economics. The language is of business, and students are now clients. Economics is the new paradigm of gauging success".

But like the last century, currently "the country is looking elsewhere, rather than where we come from. It's like theatre - the reviews from elsewhere are much more important than the ones at home. Riverdance is more exciting in New York than Dublin." Nowadays, because of globalisation, the tendency was to "follow the money. It is good to look to Boston, Berlin and elsewhere, but we should not ignore home."

Reflecting on the theme of James Joyce's image of Parnell, the academic spoke about the short story Ivy Day in the Committee Room in Joyce's collection Dubliners. It tells of the characters canvassing in the municipal elections in the early 1900s who meet to talk about the proposed visit of King Edward VII.

The date is October 6th, the anniversary of Parnell's death in 1891 and the gathering includes Mr Henchy, a figure based on Joyce's father who is ambivalent about Parnell. In the story, Henchy, a pragmatic character, says that "what we want is capital and the King's visit will bring in capital". But this analysis was ignored by the characters, who concentrated on the politics.

Dr Hand told his audience that in the same way that the characters were looking to Britain and the King's visit, in the Ireland of today the focus tended to be elsewhere rather than on home.

In his references to Parnell, Joyce had "utter respect" for the legendary Irish leader, whom he used in his work as a way to imagine himself as a figure in history. The writer likened the treachery and betrayal suffered by Parnell, his fall and death, to the slide in Joyce's own family fortunes.

Dubliners gave a very bleak view of Irish society, and the characters were unable to imagine their life in any other way than it was, and the power and action were elsewhere.

Joyce captured the complexities and the subtleties of political life in his analysis of Ireland, and the dreary reality of Dublin in the early 20th century, but used "imaginative acts of transformation", Dr Hand concluded.

Ms Katherine O'Callaghan of UCD's English department focused on Joyce's relationship with music, which played a large role in his life and fundamentally influenced his writing content and style.

Focusing on the 'Sirens' episode in Ulysses, she said the chapter placed traditional Irish ballads and the bardic tradition, side by side with European operatic arias.