All the living and the dead...

Growing up in England with an Irish father, I was entranced by Irish writers. Their tales were a roadmap to wilder, unexplored parts of myself: an indulgence for poetic melancholy, a neat turn of phrase, a quick temper, whimsical humour… Through their writing I made connections between myself, my father and the Irish family I never met.

I specially loved James Joyce's story, The Dead.

It begins as a gentle description of a New Year’s gathering – with all the pleasures and disappointments of its guests. Quietly, it transforms into a meditation on memory, on love, and on the closeness of the past.

Its final paragraph is perhaps the most beautiful you will ever read,
“Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, further westwards, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling too upon every part of the lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

The story has been interpreted in many forms – from director John Huston's gentle film adaptation to an unforgettable live reading with music from The Fourth Choir. In this series, I offer my own physical interpretation.