In the new
The Dead
(
The Dead
), which concludes
the Dubliners
, one of the major works of James Joyce, the great Irish novelist chose the decor of the house where lived his great-aunts to camp history.
The address of 15 Usher'Island, which after the success of the book in 1914 became a sacred place in the city, is today threatened by a real estate development project.
Read also: Irish people want to bring back the remains of James Joyce from Switzerland
What for many admirers of James Joyce looks, nothing more and nothing less, as a literary crime as much as historical causes a real outcry, in Ireland and throughout the United Kingdom.
To try to stop this project, which aims in particular to transform
“The Dead House”
into a youth hostel with 54 rooms, 99 renowned writers, including Rooney, O'Brien, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie, have decided to write an open letter to Dublin City Council.
In it, the illustrious writers of the missive did not hesitate to assert that the destruction of 15 Usher'Island will be synonymous with "
an essential loss of Irish culture
".
Read also: Burgess enlightens Joyce
The Irish Department of Culture and Heritage, for its part, has not been inactive either.
For him, changing the house of James Joyce's great-aunts into a luxury hotel or an inn will
“only weaken and downgrade Dublin's candidacy in the“
city of literature ”category
with Unesco”
.
The academic world was also shocked by this project.
John McCourt, one of the best connoisseurs of the work of James Joyce across the Channel, published a real plea for the preservation of
"The House of the Dead"
in
The Irish Times
: "
Dublin can build any hotel room that she wants but, if she continues to ignore or destroy her cultural heritage, unique in the world, she will end up erasing what still remains of the heart of the city.
There will not be much left to see for our visitors and unfortunately also for Dubliners.
We have to think about all of this.
"
Time is running out now since the town hall seems to have granted a building permit to real estate developers (Fergus McCabe and Brian Stynes), who acquired this historic address for the sum of 650,000 €, a relatively low price for a property of this nature.
The main argument of the Dublin City Council for giving its blank check would be based on the fact that "
the condition of the building is worrying and that its new destination would be the best way to guarantee its long-term conservation
".
Faced with this decision, which now seems almost irrevocable, the defenders of "The House of the Dead" have only one recourse in Ireland, the An Bord Pleanala.
This independent court may, if it deems it useful, quash decisions taken by local authorities in the Republic of Ireland.
This is the last chance to save some of the memory of James Joyce and his people in Dublin.
Le Figaro
presents an extract from
The Dead
(1987) by John Huston, inspired by the work of James Joyce published in 1914, with Anjelica Huston, Donal McCann ....
