Bloomsday
Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, observed annually in Dublin and elsewhere on 16 June, the day his 1922 novel Ulysses takes place on a Thursday in 1904, the date of his first sexual encounter with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle,[1] and named after its protagonist Leopold Bloom.
[3] On the 50th anniversary of the events in the novel, a Wednesday in 1954, John Ryan (artist, critic, publican and founder of Envoy magazine) and the novelist Brian O'Nolan organised what was to be a daylong pilgrimage along the Ulysses route.
The pilgrimage was abandoned halfway through, when the weary pilgrims succumbed to inebriation and rancour at the Bailey pub in the city centre, which Ryan then owned, and at which in 1967 he installed the door to No.
Enthusiasts often dress in Edwardian costume to celebrate Bloomsday, and retrace Bloom's route around Dublin via landmarks such as Davy Byrne's pub.
"[7] On Bloomsday 1982, the centenary year of Joyce's birth, Irish state broadcaster RTÉ transmitted a continuous 30-hour dramatic performance of the entire text of Ulysses on radio.
On the Sunday before the 100th "anniversary" of the fictional events described in the book, 10,000 people in Dublin were treated to a free, open-air, full Irish breakfast on O'Connell Street consisting of sausages, rashers, toast, beans, and black and white puddings.
[8] BBC Radio Four devoted most of its broadcasting on 16 June 2012, to a dramatisation of Ulysses, with additional comments from critic Mark Lawson talking to Joyce scholars.
The reading concluded with opera singer Laura Baxter performing Molly Bloom's soliloquy in its entirety, a feat taking 2+1⁄2 hours by itself.
In addition to dozens of readers, often including Philadelphia's mayor, singers from the Academy of Vocal Arts perform songs that are integral to the novel's plot.
Usually a day long event, the center hosts readings, a documentary, a play, Irish dancers and a performance by Dublin balladeer Eddie Delahunt.
Live Irish music was provided by the band Glasgow Kiss, and IAS members attended dressed in Joycean accessories (fedoras, round glasses, eye patches, etc.).
[25] Bethlehem, Pennsylvania - Sam Masotto (uncostumed) of Bonn Place Brewery celebrates Bloomsday by reciting sections from "Ulysses" behind the bar while onlookers look and drink and wonder 'why' - June 16, 2022.
[30] The play, written by Bloomsday in Melbourne's Steve Carey, focuses on a key period in the young James Joyce's life, between his first failed exile in Paris in 1902 and his departure for Europe in September 1904.
Guest Molly Blooms have included New Zealanders Robyn Malcolm, Noelle McCarthy, Carmel McGlone, Lucy Lawless, Joe Carolan, Geraldine Brophy and Jennifer Ward-Lealand.
Thus for example "Telemachus" has been read in a medieval tower or on a terrace overlookibg the port, "Nestor" in a classroom of the Faculty of Languages, "Proteus" in a bookshop on the waterfront, "Scylla and Charybdis" in the University Library, and "Cyclops" in an old pub.
The event is usually centred on the Iseum – the remnants of an Isis temple there from Roman times – and the Blum-mansion, commemorated to Joyce since 1997, at 40–41 Fő square, which used to be the property of an actual Jewish family called Blum.
Hungarian author László Najmányi in his 2007 novel, The Mystery of the Blum-mansion (A Blum-ház rejtélye) describes the results of his research on the connection between Joyce and the Blum family.
[37] Bloomsday has been celebrated in Brazil since 1967 when the first event took place in São Paulo, a year after it had first been translated into Portuguese by former diplomat Antônio Houaiss.
In 1956, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath were married by special licence of the Archbishop of Canterbury at St George the Martyr Church, Holborn, on 16 June, in honour of Bloomsday.
The book's main protagonist, Riba, a retired Spanish editor, moves to this city with several writer friends to officiate a "funeral" for the Gutenberg era.
In the 2005 film musical version, in the evening scene at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, Leo asks, "When will it be Bloom's day?".
However, in the earlier scene in which Bloom first meets Max Bialystock, the office wall calendar shows that the current day is 16 June, indicating that it is, in fact, Bloomsday.
In 1991's Slacker, a character reads an excerpt from Ulysses after convincing his friends to dump a tent and a typewriter in a river as a response to a prior lover's infidelity.
