Alcoholic Family: The Sobering Reality of the Joyces

Please join us on Friday, 23 October at 6.30pm as author Christine Dwyer Hickey delivers a talk about alcoholism and the Joyce family. To grow up in an alcoholic home is to grow up among chaos. Chaos brought about by fear, shame, guilt and even grief. To survive, family members adapt certain strategies: they enable, cover up and deny their own feelings. They take on various roles in order to protect the family unit: Hero, Enabler, Scapegoat and Lost Child, Clown. This is how the Alcoholic Family is built. In short, if Tolstoy’s unhappy families are all unhappy in their own way, alcoholic families are unhappy in a way that is remarkably similar and depressingly predictable. There can be no doubt that John Stanislaus Joyce was a chronic alcoholic. But what impact did his drinking have on his family? This lecture will consider the Joyces as the quintessential 'Alcoholic Family' as defined by psychologists and medical professionals. It will also discuss the influence brought to bear on the work and life of the eldest son James, who would go on to become the most gifted and famous writer of the 20th century. Tickets are €5. Doors open at 6pm. The talk will be followed by a wine reception. Christine Dwyer Hickey is a novelist and short story writer. She has published nine novels and a short story collection. Christine has won many awards including the Walter Scott Prize 2020 and the Dalkey Literary Award for her novel The Narrow Land and the Kerry Group Novel of the Year for The Cold Eye of Heaven. Her novel Tatty, which deals with the effects of alcoholism on the life of a Dublin family, was shortlisted for the Irish Book of the Year, nominated for the Orange Prize and was Unesco One City One Book 2020. She has written extensively about Dublin throughout her career and has set various novels and a short story collection in her native city. Her work has been translated into several languages both European and Arabic. She is a member of Aosdána.