Nora Barnacle House invites Galway to read Joyce together this winter

Here's something a bit different happening in Galway by Night; Five intimate evenings will take readers from Dubliners to Finnegans Wake in the house where Nora Barnacle grew up! Find out more here...

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Nora Barnacle House is launching a new winter reading series this October, inviting a small group of readers to explore James Joyce's work in the intimate setting of Nora Barnacle's childhood home.

The five-part series will run once a month from October 2026 to February 2027, bringing together approximately 12 to 16 participants for informal, focused evenings of reading and discussion. Each session will take place from 7pm to 9pm and will follow Joyce's work chronologically.

The reading programme will begin on 8 October 2026 with selected stories from Dubliners (1914), followed on 12 November by A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). The 10 December session will focus on selected articles and poems from 1907 to 1927. On 14 January 2027, participants will read selected excerpts from Ulysses (1922), followed by selected excerpts from Finnegans Wake (1939) on 11 February.

The series is designed in the spirit of a traditional book club. The deliberately small group will allow participants to read, discuss and discover Joyce's work together, in one of Galway's significant literary spaces. The cost for the full five-session series is €125.

Nora Barnacle House, on Bowling Green, is the childhood home of Nora Barnacle, the Galway woman whose life and relationship with Joyce became central to his personal and literary world.

For almost four decades, the house has been cared for by Galway women who recognised the importance of preserving Nora's story and the social history of the city she came from. Sisters Mary and Sheila purchased the house in 1987, and today Sheila's daughter Clare has joined to continue that work.

The winter reading series brings Joyce's writing back into the Galway setting closely connected to his life, while creating an opportunity for local readers and visitors to spend time with his work in a personal setting.

"We wanted to create something small and intimate that gives people the chance to really spend time with Joyce's writing," said Sheila. "The house is such an important part of Nora's story, and we love the idea of filling it during the quieter winter months with people reading, talking and discovering the work together."

The series forms part of Nora Barnacle House's ongoing programme of events as it looks towards the fortieth anniversary of its Bloomsday celebrations in 2028.

Tickets are available through Eventbrite.

This programme is supported by the Galway City Council Night-Time Economy Programme and the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, supporting a more diverse night-time economy in Galway City and supporting the extended opening hours of cultural venues.