Dublin’s a world stage for the Bloomsday centenary
FRANK MURPHY takes a stroll through the streets of the Irish capital in the footsteps of the hero of James Joyce’s epic novel, Ulysses.
THE irony sticks out a mile for all to see and is perhaps worthy of James Joyce himself.
For roughly half of 2004 — and the party’s already begun — Dublin, the city which Joyce called “the city of failure, of rancour and of unhappiness” is truly wallowing in an orgy of celebration in honour of the great man’s memory.
In fact, some would have it that Ireland’s capital city has taken an overdose of James Joyce, stretching the events of one day in fiction a century ago into a party which, like “Ulysses”, the book by Joyce which it honours, seems to go on forever.
Alright, James Joyce may, arguably, be Ireland’s greatest author. But even he would be turning in his grave to see what’s going on in Dublin, allegedly in his honour.
The occasion — if you’re one of the ignorant ones — is the centenary of Bloomsday this year, or 100 years after June 16, 1904.
It’s an important date for millions of literary scholars worldwide. On that day Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom each took their journeys through Dublin in Joyce’s “Ulysses”, the one-thousand page epic which has been hailed as the world’s most highly acclaimed modern novel. Bloomsday has become a tradition for Joyce enthusiasts all over the world.
From Tokyo to Sydney, San Francisco to Hong Kong, Trieste to Paris, dozens of cities around the globe hold their own Bloomsday festivities.
The celebrations usually include readings as well as staged re-enactments and street-side improvisations of scenes from the story. People dress up in period costume or as characters from the book itself.
But nowhere is Bloomsday more rollicking and exuberant than Dublin itself, of course. Dublin — home of Molly and Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, Buck Mulligan, Gerty McDowell and James Joyce himself.
Here, the art of “Ulysses” becomes the daily life of hundreds of Dubliners and the city’s visitors as they retrace the odyssey each year.
Usually, Bloomsday is a single day. But that wouldn’t do at all for the centenary of this fictional day. No way at all.
Ireland kicked off a five-month festival of the occasion on April 1 with events in Dublin running until August 31.
Minister for Arts, Sport, and Tourism, Mr John O’Donoghue has appointed a committee to oversee and co-ordinate the celebrations of one of the nation’s greatest literary masters.
Everyone from literary novices of the great man to Joyce scholars will surely find a range of programmes suited to their interests.
And besides all that, there are a number of spectacular exhibitions and events planned, street theatre, music programmes, and all-round family.
Dublin itself, of course, takes centre stage. In “Ulysses” Joyce captured the soul of Ireland’s capital city in all its gritty glory and immortalised it in print.
So for Bloomsday 1904, read Rejoyce Dublin 2004.
Now, the literary purists among you might well be asking how is it that one book — Ulysses — about one day — June 16 1904 — in one city — Dublin — can spawn an outpouring of five months’ worth of events and celebrations across the Irish capital?
Buy, hey, this is about getting the American tourists, OK. And anyway, Ireland is a country never known to turn its back on a party, and it’s all happening in a city which literally worships its writers as nowhere else in the world.
The principal activities for doing your “ReJoycing” activities are due to take place on Bloomsday itself and on days close to it.
Oh what a boon it is to find the centenary this year falls midweek on a Wednesday. Celebrations begin in earnest the weekend before and last until the weekend after.
Dennys, for instance, is inviting 10,000 people to enjoy a Bloomsday Breakfast to greet the Wednesday morning. It will take place along O’Connell Street which will be sealed off from traffic for the occasion from Parnell Street to Abbey Street.
The breakfast will involve four separate sittings from nine in the morning until noon. It will include for those souls brave enough to partake of them Leopold Bloom’s beloved “inner organs of beasts and fowls”, as Joyce called them. That’s fried kidneys to you and me.
There then follows a series of lectures, exhibitions, films, broadcast productions, street festivals, concerts and ample time for pub-crawling to follow.
Before all that, on June 14, the National Library of Ireland, on Kildare Street, opens an extensive exhibit about “Ulysses” and how it came into being. Two years ago, the library acquired a trove of Joyce’s notebooks and early drafts of his most famous novel.
These items, to be shown for the first time, and copy No. 1 of the first edition of “Ulysses,” published in Paris in 1922, will be on display for perusal of Joyce fans until July 31, next year.
Besides these occasions aimed at the general public, some 130 academic papers will be presented to nearly 500 scholars attending the International James Joyce Symposium during the week surrounding Bloomsday.
Since the original Bloomsday in 1904, when Leopold Bloom could easily stroll throughout Dublin and its succession of interconnected villages, the city has dramatically grown and sprawled, of course, with travel by foot less customary—and the gridlock from car traffic a fact of recent urban life. So allow time if you’re embarking on any of the scheduled tours.
Wherever you walk, you’ll find it increasingly impossible to avoid Joyce. Three separate museums — the James Joyce Centre, in North Great George’s Street; the James Joyce Museum and Tower, at Sandycove, and the recently opened James Joyce House, at 15 Usher’s Island — are devoted to his life and work, while the Dublin Writers Museum in Parnell Square helps place him in the context of other Irish authors.
Besides, a set of 14 brass pavement plaques, complete with quotations from the book and page numbers, allow visitors to find where significant scenes in “Ulysses” are supposed to have occurred.
In addition, a large statue of Joyce, dedicated during Bloomsday activities in 1990, looks out on O’Connell Street from its perch on North Earl Street, and a striking bust of the author in St. Stephen’s Green is strategically positioned to keep a watchful eye on Newman House of University College Dublin, where he studied.
A new bridge across the River Liffey sports Joyce’s name, and at 52 Clanbrassil Street, in the old Jewish quarter, a city-sanctioned sign recognises the fictional birthplace of Leopold Bloom with these words: “Citizen, Husband, Father, Wanderer, Reincarnation of Ulysses.”
Joyce died in Switzerland in 1941 three decades after his last visit to Ireland. He took great delight in creating complexity. About “Ulysses” he once quipped: “I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of ensuring immortality.”
For more information visit www.rejoycedublin2004.com
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