Walking tours, dramatic readings, plays and pork kidney breakfasts will be among the Bloomsday celebrations on Thursday, as James Joyce devotees retrace the steps of Leopold Bloom across Dublin.
The annual celebration of Ulysses, Joyce’s enormous, ground-breaking piece of fiction set on a single day in Dublin, June 16th, 1904, makes a full return following two years of mostly online events due to Covid-19.
So what events are on and where?
There will be a reading of Telemachus at the James Joyce Tower, Sandycove Point, south Dublin at 9.30am, organised by Friends of the Joyce Tower Society.
A staple of any Bloomsday, Sweny’s Pharmacy on Lincoln Place will have songs and reading from volunteers throughout the day, as well as bars of lemon soap for sale.
The Balloonatics Theatre Company are throwing on several theatrical walks to key spots over the morning and afternoon, followed by an evening show of rehearsed readings in Wynn’s Hotel at 7.30pm (tickets €10).
Glasnevin Cemetery will stage a free re-enactment of the funeral procession of Paddy Dignam from the Hades episode at 11am, followed by a Joycean-themed tour of the cemetery costing €13.
The Pro Cathedral church on Marlborough Place is to host its first-ever Bloomsday reading at 11.30am on Thursday. Former RTÉ actor Gerry McArdle is to read from Ulysses and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, both of which were previously on the Vatican’s index of banned books.
A sold-out Bloomsday Breakfast will take place in the James Joyce Centre on North Great George’s Street, with a full Irish breakfast including optional pork kidneys.
Historian Pat Liddy is running walking tours of the city retracing the steps of Leopold Bloom, with all tours sold out on Thursday due to demand.
Local historian Hugo McGuinness is running a 90-minute tour through the Monto, Dublin’s old red-light district, starting from Grainger’s pub on Talbot Street at 11am, which is also sold out.
The North Inner City Folklore project is to put on an outdoor photographic exhibition on old photographs of the Monto, which features in the book, on Foley Street from noon until 4pm.
The Edmund Burke Theatre in Trinity College Dublin is screening a documentary at 11am that examines the masterpiece, with admission free.
Actor Barry McGovern is finishing a seven-day complete reading of Ulysses at the Abbey Theatre’s Peacock stage on Thursday, with a 10am and 2pm reading (tickets €12).
Writers’ Tears Irish Whiskey are hosting a Bloomsday whiskey tasting in the Palace Bar on Fleet Street at 7.30pm, tickets are €15 with proceeds donated to the Capuchin Franciscans.
Smaller “Bloomsday villages” events have also been organised in Portobello, Ballsbridge, Ringsend, Sandymount and Drumcondra over the day.
Later in the week there is a walking tour along the Royal Canal on Saturday and Sunday starting at 11am, which over 90 minutes explores the moments the canal features in the book with tour guides and performers.
The Smock Alley Theatre is showing a one-woman play about Nora Joyce, set five years after the death of her husband James Joyce in 1946, with tickets €20 and still available for Thursday. The Smock Alley is also showing an adaption of Dubliners by James Joyce, which runs until 24th June.
The National Gallery of Ireland is displaying an exhibition celebrating Ulysses in the Hugh Lane Room until 21st August.
- Jack Power is a reporter with The Irish Times and not to be confused with Jack Power of the “goodlooking face” who travelled with Leopold Bloom to Paddy Dignam’s funeral in Ulysses
