Class 11: Dublin, Displaced Memories. This class is based on the idea that Dublin lives on memories. But many of them seem at odds with the lives actually lived in the city, hence my word “displaced.” In the first hour, we shall look at various aspects of Dublin’s history, from the elegant legacy of the English Protestant Ascendancy to the struggles around 1920 when the Irish finally freed themselves from that yoke. But before looking at these forms of displaced heritage, I also needed to discover why Dublin lodged itself so firmly in my own mind as a magical place, even though I have never quite been able to recapture that magic on later visits. And by extension, I also tried to reconstruct my mother’s experiences of the city, when she did her midwifery training there as a young woman during the Irish Civil War.

The second hour will be simpler: a look at James Joyce’s portrait of Dublin in Ulysses, followed by a series of videos illustrating epithets that one might apply to the city: historic, poetic, musical, quirky, and (since my last visit) surprisingly modern.

 
It has taken me longer than expected to prepare this class. A handout is available now, but the usual supporting materials will not be published until the end of the week. This applies to last week's class too.