Celebrate Bloomsday in Ireland…. We’re delighted to announce that the full programme for Bloomsday 2017 is now live! We’re thrilled with this year’s action-packed schedule of food events, walks, talks, music and more, and today is The Celebration Day… James Joyce!!
WHAT IS BLOOMSDAY?
Bloomsday is a celebration that takes place both in Dublin and around the world. It celebrates Thursday 16 June 1904, which is the day depicted in James Joyce’s™ novel Ulysses. The day is named after Leopold Bloom, the central character in Ulysses. The novel follows the life and thoughts of Leopold Bloom and a host of other characters ~ real and fictional ~ from 8am on 16 June 1904 through to the early hours of the following morning.
Celebrations often include dressing up like characters from the book and in clothes that would have been the style of the era. One of the hallmark fancy dress items of Bloomsday is the straw boater hat. Celebrations come in many different forms like readings, performances and visiting the places and establishments that are referenced in the book. The Bloomsday Breakfast is another common celebration, which involves eating the same breakfast as Leopold Bloom consumes on the morning of 16 June. This includes liver and kidneys alongside the typical ingredients of an Irish fried breakfast.
In Ireland things kicked off on Sunday 11 June with the Irish Food Trail’s first ever Joycean foodie walking tour. And if you enjoy imbibing the book by way of a palliative or two be sure to check out our Pub Crawl (11, 12 June), Joyce of Whiskey tours (15 June) and a rollicking night of trad and pints at the Bloomsday Hooley (14 June).
This week will also see us host the first public broadcast of an interview with Joyce’s sister, Margaret Alice ‘Poppie’ Joyce (12 June), as well as launch a new print exhibition, ‘Ulysses: A Visual Schema’, with graphic artist James MacDonnell speaking alongside local scholar Terence Killeen about the work (11 June). We’re also thrilled to welcome an exciting line-up of speakers for the week. This year’s Bloomsday Interview sees the lauded comic writer Geoff Dyer in conversation with Mark O’Connell (13 June). Professor of Poetry at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Elizabeth Willis, will discuss and read from her experimental collections at
Poetry Ireland (14 June). Novelist and poet Dermot Bolger will sit down with Michael O’Loughlin and Ruth Gilligan in the GPO’s Witness Gallery for a lively discussion about Irishness, nationalism and writing (15 June). And we’ll celebrate the work of poet, critic and original Bloomsday raconteur, Anthony Cronin, in Dublin City Hall (16 June). Throw in the family friendly, life-size Ulysses map ‘Wandering Rocks’ (16 June), night-time literary club the Poetry Brothel (16 June), a Virtual Reality Ulysses (14 16 June) and our celebrated Bloomsday Readings in Meeting House Square led by poet Stephen James Smith (16 June) and you’ll have plenty on your plate this Bloomsday!
