Loose Leaves: If the seam of legal references in Ulysses is still not fully mined then the perfect man for the job may have emerged in the personage of Supreme Court judge Adrian Hardiman, who dazzled a meeting of the National Library Society on Dublin's Kildare Street on Wednesday night with his knowledge of the novel.
His talk, A Gruesome Case - James Joyce's Dublin Murder Trial centred on a trial the young Joyce attended as a student: that of Samuel Childs, accused of murdering his elderly brother Thomas at his home near Prospect cemetery, Glasnevin, an area Joyce knew well. Defended by Seymour Bushe and Tim Healy, Samuel Childs was ultimately acquitted after a sensational trial in Green Street Criminal Court - the victim was well off, the accused respectable. The case would have been forgotten but for the recurring mentions of it in Ulysses, some of them plain, some oblique. In the lovely setting of the library's new seminar room, Mr Justice Hardiman wondered if Samuel Childs, as he faced the prospect of being hanged in Dublin, could have imagined that such a throng would be sitting discussing him in the same city more than a hundred years later thanks to the work of the most influential writer of the 20th century?
In the novel, Paddy Dignam's mourners allude to the murder as they pass by where it took place. "Gloomy gardens then went by, one by one: gloomy houses. Mr Power pointed. - That is where Childs was murdered, he said. The last house. - So it is, Mr Dedalus said. A gruesome case. Seymour Bushe got him off. Murdered his brother. Or so they said. - The crown had no evidence, Mr Power said. - Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham said. That's the maxim of the law." But, said Judge Hardiman, Joyce was wrong in crediting Bushe with the acquittal, eloquent and all as he may have been, adding that the credit belonged to Tim Healy, who noticed the weaknesses in the prosecution case. "Joyce allowed Healy no credit at all," he said, reminding the audience of Joyce's hatred of Healy because of his role in the downfall of Parnell, dating back to the age of nine when he penned his famous denunciatory poem Et Tu, Healy, which pleased his father so much he had it distributed to friends.
One can be reborn as a Joycean at any stage of life and Judge Hardiman's next talk on Joyce takes place on February 15th next year when he addresses the Irish Legal History Society on Law, Crime and Punishment in Bloomsday Dublin in Queen's University Belfast. Will he ultimately do for Joyce and law what JB Lyons did in another area with his James Joyce and Medicine (Dolmen, 1973). Given the amount of law cases referred to in Ulysses, there's definitely a book in here somewhere.
Irish to make an Impac
Now that the dust has settled on the inclusion of Cecelia Ahern in the 132-strong longlist for the 11th International Impac Dublin Literary Award - a story which stole the limelight when the list was announced early this week - there's a strong feeling among local literary pundits that 2006 could be the first year in the prize's history to throw up an Irish winner. The roll call of previous winners is impressive; David Malouf, Javier Mariás, Herta Müller, Andrew Miller, Nicola Barker, Alistair MacLeod, Michel Houellebecq, OrhaPamuk, Tahar Ben Jelloun and Edward P Jones, but no Irish writer has yet picked up the garland at the annual award ceremony in Dublin. Of the six Irish names on this longlist, Cecelia Ahern, Ronan Bennett, Frank Delaney, Roddy Doyle, Tina Reilly and Colm Tóibín, the two strongest contenders are probably Bennett and Tóibín. The shortlist will be announced on April 5th, the winner on June 14th. While much comment this week revolved around the inclusion of popular fiction authors on the longlist, what's often forgotten is that this award celebrates readers and libraries as well as authors, with nominations coming from 180 library systems from 124 cities around the globe - it's a very wide catch and there's nothing wrong with that.
Praise to a fault
Ireland Professor of Poetry Paul Durcan wasn't stinting in his nomination of poet Nick Laird for the Ireland Chair of Poetry Trust's 2005 poet of promise title, which Laird was endowed with during the week. "It does not happen often but it does happen: a first book of poems is published and a star is born. Such a book is To a Fault and such a new born star is Nick Laird." Laird won't have to stray far from his heartlands to avail of the spoils that come with his new title - a period of residence at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Co Monaghan. He was born 30 years ago just up the road in Co Tyrone. Reviewing the book, published by Faber, on these pages Belinda McKeon found it a collection "born of a confident hybrid of voices and styles, an approach which proves memorable and troubling in equal measure".