Friday 13 September | 7pm | Round Room | James Joyce Tower | €10

The celebrated guitarist John Feeley and singer and Joycean scholar Fran O’Rourke will give a recital of the traditional songs (in English and Irish) that feature in the writings of James Joyce.

John and Fran have given concerts in Shanghai, New York, Philadelphia, Princeton, San Diego and Washington. Their CD of traditional songs in Irish, “Casadh na nAmhrán / Turning the Song” was chosen by the reviewer of Irish Music Magazine as his recording of the year.

John Feeley was described by the Washington Post as ‘Ireland’s leading classical guitarist’ and by Michael Dervan in the Irish Times as ‘a trailblazer…when it comes to the guitar and guitar-playing in Ireland’. John has a PhD in music and has taught at the American Institute of Guitar, Memphis State University, the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the Conservatory of Music, TU Dublin. Highly regarded for his performance and recordings of new works by Irish composers, he has had many works written for him.

Fran O’Rourke acquired a love of Irish songs as a schoolboy during a three-month stay in the Connemara Gaeltacht. While studying on the Continent during the ’70s he took part in major festivals in Belgium, Germany and Holland, as well as appearing on radio and television. He is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at UCD and is the author of Joyce, Aristotle and Aquinas published in 2022. While researching philosophical influences in James Joyce he discovered the importance also of traditional songs in his writings (joycesong.info; franorourke.ie).