CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND
May 2017
The Classical Association in Northern Ireland
Public reading of Homer’s Iliad McClay Library, Queen’s University Belfast, December 8, 2016 The public reading of Homer’s Iliad was an ambitious undertaking which was first discussed by the CANI steering group in July 2016. Within five months, on Thursday 8th December 2016, the event took place in the McClay Library at Queen’s University Belfast. Once the venue had been secured, it was time to attempt to fill the 50+ ten-minute reading slots which we anticipated we would need to complete Books 1-12. With the help of audio recordings of the Iliad and a stopwatch, we estimated how long it might take to read each book. A timetable was drawn up so that the readers who joined the rota might have an idea of what part of the poem they would be reading. #IliadLiveBelfast began with a welcome and introduction by the CANI convenor, Dr John Curran. Our first reader was Heather Parsons from Tasmania: she had provided a video-recording of herself reading the first 100 or so lines. We continued with a group of five students (and their teacher) from the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. The boys ranged in age from 14-18 and they read beautifully, CLICK TO WATCH CANI Convenor Dr John Curran read: https://www.google.ie/amp/s/classicalassociationni.w ordpress.com/2016/12/18/iliadlive-belfast-publicreading-review/amp/
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showing their passion for both Classics in general and Homer in particular. As readers came and went, our audience grew. Some stayed for several hours, bringing with them their own copies of the Iliad in order to follow the reading. We were positioned beside the entrance to the Hope Cafe in a lounge with easy-chairs and coffee machines, an area of the library open to the public. Vase paintings of the Trojan War and photos from the site in Turkey illustrated the readings in a rolling slide-show presentation on a screen behind the readers’ lectern. Passers-by, students, staff, and members of the public stopped to listen with their lunch or a coffee. They learned about the work of CANI, and some were persuaded to join in with the reading. Participants came from as far afield as Dublin and Maynooth to the south and Ballymoney to the north, along with staff and students from Queen’s University Belfast, RBAI and Victoria College. Our youngest reader was 8 years old, and our most senior reader an octogenarian, proving that Homer’s story truly spans the generations.