https://www.onelittlegoat.org/finneganswake

Welcome to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. In this episode we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor Richard Harte performing pages 44 to 47 featuring the song, “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly,” to conclude Chapter 2 of Joyce’s last novel, with piano accompaniment and an introduction by director Adam Seelig.

Richard’s performance (pages 44:7-47:34) was recorded with a live audience at Noonan’s Irish Pub in Toronto on 26 June 2023.

For a transcript of this episode, please visit https://www.onelittlegoat.org/podcast.

“James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake” is produced by One Little Goat Theatre Company, an official charity in Canada and USA. If you’d like to support our work, please visit us online to make a charitable donation and join our mailing list.

To get in touch, email us at onelittlegoattc@gmail.com — we’d love to hear from you.

This podcast is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the Government of Ireland. Thank you for your support!

Thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte (Reader); William Bembridge (Sound); Sean Rasmussen (Podcast Production); Jobina Sitoh (Stage Management); Adam Seelig (Director). Thanks to our wonderful live audience at Noonan’s.

Thank you to the Irish Consulate in Toronto and to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy and Andrew Moodie. Thank you to Darina Gallagher and the James Joyce Centre in Dublin for your partnership.

Thank you for listening!

Mentioned: “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly,” Hosty the scandalmongering busker, ‘perce-oreille’ is ‘earwig’ in French, Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar rap battle, scapegoat, “Carnival of Venice” melody, Paganini, Seelig and Harte arrangement of “Ballad of PO’R,” stutter, synopsis.

Resources: Transcript for this episode, including the text of Finnegans Wake pages 44-47. Finnegans Wake (1939) by James Joyce: there are many free copies of FW to read online or download, e.g. finwake.com

James Joyce Digital Archive, “Chicken Guide” to Finnegans Wake provides a ‘plain English’ paraphrase of each chapter by Danis Rose.

Edmund Epstein, A Guide through Finnegans Wake. University Press of Florida, 2009.

William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake. Syracuse University Press, 1996.

Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake (4th edition). Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2016.

John Gordon’s annotations on his Finnegans Wake blog.

Richard Ellmann’s biography of James Joyce. Oxford University Press, 1982.