This book club is for everyone, you don't need to be a poetry expert!

There will be an opportunity to read our favourite poems from this collection, chat about themes and inspirations and ask questions about anything we didn't understand.

Enjoy a fascinating journey exploring the highlights of Heaney's archive, from his rural origins through to his remarkable career as a poet

The quote above is from a letter that Jane Austen wrote to her niece Anna on the 28th of September, 1814. 

Maria Edgeworth was at the very top of Jane Austen’s reading list. Maria was equally a fan of Jane’s novels. But even as Jane was publishing anonymously, Maria was enjoying the respect and renown of being one of Britain’s leading authors. 

Today the tables are turned. Everyone has heard of Austen while Edgeworth has slipped into obscurity. In this talk, Rachel and Andrew Knowles explore the Austen-Edgeworth connection as they tell the story of Maria, who spent much of her life in Edgeworthstown, County Longford. 

Bloomsday celebrates the 16th of June 1904, the day depicted in James Joyce’s world famous novel Ulysses, and is named after the book’s central character Leopold Bloom. The National Library of Ireland celebrates our connection to Ulysses and James Joyce every year, both in our iconic Reading Room and the Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again exhibition on College Green.

Just prior to entering the National Library, Leopold Bloom walks across Dublin—passing through Westmoreland Street —in the Aeolus episode of Ulysses. The National Library and its beautiful Reading Room then feature in Episode 9: Scylla and Charybdis, in which Bloom visits the library between approximately 2pm and 3pm.

The Main Reading Room will be open to the public on Bloomsday between 5pm and 7:30pm. Ayrton O'Brien will also be reading passages from Ulysses in the Reading Room at 5:30pm, 6pm, and 6:30pm.

No advance booking is required.