CELINE ARGUDO and Lise Carrel probably had not expected to transform Galway into a medieval town with a clever mayor and James Joyce’s “bellsybabbling” devil.
However, that's what happened, momentarily, when the Mediterranean visitors popped into Nora Barnacle's former home to celebrate Bloomsday yesterday. They had just listened to a passage from Ulysseswhen they were handed a copy of Le Chat et Le Diableand invited to read from the old French tale that Joyce rewrote for his grandson Stephen.
Tea, coffee, cakes and readings have been a Bloomsday tradition at the Nora Barnacle museum, run by Sheila and Mary Gallagher. On hand with home-baking was another sister, Anne Marshall, and curator Franchine Mulrooney.
It was John Burke's first visit and he had selected a section from the Ulysses"wandering rocks" episode. He had travelled from Mullingar and confessed he never knew about the Barnacle home in Bowling Green when he was a student in the city.
Among the first to call were Rory and Teri Brennan from Florida, while other readers included Ann McCurry from “Patrick Kavanagh country” in Co Monaghan, Sheila O’Donnellan of the Lady Gregory autumn school, NUI Galway students Majanne Bryan and Anne Murphy, and Galway residents Bernie Farrell, James Casserley, Eileen Naughten and Brigid Christofides.
Built two centuries ago, the terraced house was home to baker Thomas Barnacle and his dressmaker wife, Annie Healy, for several decades from 1894. Nora was second child in a family of eight, and was raised by her maternal grandmother nearby. Franchine Mulrooney's Bloomsday contribution was in verse, but from Yeats and to music – Down by the Sally Gardens. She reminded guests of Joyce's musical talents, which led to Nora Barnacle being smitten by him when he performed that very song in 1904.