BLOOMSDAY marks the day in 1904 on which all the action of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses takes place. It is celebrated every year on 16th June by Joyceans all over the world. In Dublin, where the novel is set, Bloomsday celebrations go on for a week, with most of the attention on the day itself. It is traditional to dress up and go out for the day, visiting the locations of the book and taking part in readings, walks, reenactments and convivial activities of all sorts which in some way connect with Ulysses, its author and its world. As an occasion rather than a festival, Bloomsday has no ‘official’ programme or organising committee.
Joycean’s all over the world congregate in Dublin to celebrate the life and work of its favourite author – with readings, performances, breakfasts, walks, conferences and visits to the pub. The first Bloomsday was on the 16th June 1904 when James Joyce went on his first date with Nora Barnacle, his future wife. Years later, Joyce chose to set ‘Ulysses’ on the same day.
Bloomsday is the celebration of Ireland’s literary icon James Joyce and his most famous novel Ulysses, through street theatre, costume and public readings.
Each year on the 16th June the streets of Dublin are transported back to 1904, to a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, the central character in James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses; the novel that immortalised the character of Dublin during the late 19th Century in all its gritty reality.
Bloomsday has become something of a tradition for Joyce devotees who follow the epic journey of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, in full costume, through the streets and bars of Dublin, from the Freeman’s Journal over O’Connell Bridge to Davy Byrnes for Gorgonzola and burgundy and on to the National Library. Along the way, there are colourful street theatre enactments of scenes from Ulysses as well as readings from the book.
There are James Joyce societies that hold Bloomsday events throughout the world from San Francisco to Tokyo and from Trieste to Paris, but nowhere is Bloomsday as rollicking and energetic as its original setting of Dublin.
Bloomsday celebrated its centenary in 2004 with a five month festival of literature and theatre and the day itself just gets bigger and bigger each year. Bloomsday 16th June is a great time to visit Dublin, whether you’ve managed to read Ulysses or not!
For more information on Bloomsday and James Joyce log on to the James Joyce Centre.
Walking Tours
Join us for a walking tour of historic Joycean Dublin and take in some of the monumental and ordinary sights and sounds of the city in which Joyce staged all his works. Our walking tours are available every Saturday at 11am and 2pm, and by advanced booking on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11am and 2pm (with at least four people in attendance).
Adult €10 Senior/Student €8
Specialist tours and group rates available.
In the Footsteps of Leopold Bloom
This tour begins at the James Joyce Centre, 35 North Great Georges Street and ends at the National Museum on Kildare St. This Walking Tour of the city follows Leopold Bloom’s route as he wanders the streets of Dublin in search of something to eat at lunchtime on 16 June 1904. The route takes in the fourteen plaques that comprise Robin Buick’s sculpture trail entitled ‘In the Footsteps of Leopold Bloom,’ and the Tour introduces many points of topographical and historical interest en route to Kildare Street and the National Museum. In the Footsteps of Leopold Bloom explores the social, cultural and political background to Joyce’s Ulysses and to Bloom’s thoughts as he crosses the city around lunchtime. ‘Lestrygonians’ is an episode of contrasts, most often between the well-fed and the under-fed, and these contrasts indicate the politics behind Bloom’s thoughts. The city architecture noticed by Bloom reinforces these contrasts, and the constant presence of police constables reminds us of the realities of Dublin as a colonial city and the central issue of food in social, cultural and political life in 1904. The tour lasts about an hour and a half.
A Joyce Circular
This tour begins and ends at the James Joyce Centre, 35 North Great Georges Street. On our andante dander around the Hibernian metropolis we take in Earl Street and the prick with the stick; the house Oliver "Buck Mulligan" Gogarty was born in; the setting of the Dubliners story ‘The Boarding House’; the house in which Sean O’ Casey was born; 7 Eccles Street, home of the Blooms; and Belvedere College, which Joyce attended in the 1890s. The tour lasts about an hour and a half.
The original front-door from No. 7 Eccles Street (Leopold Bloom’s home in Ulysses) is on display in the yard at the back of the house.
35 NORTH GREAT GEORGE’S STREET
This house was built in 1784 by Francis Ryan for Valentine Brown, the Earl of Kenmare, who used it as his townhouse. The plasterwork here was done by Michael Stapleton, one of the finest stuccadores of the time. The house was given special mention by Constantine Curran in his book Dublin Decorative Plasterwork of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, and the photographs he took were essential to the restoration of the house. Curran was also a close friend of Joyce’s.
In the eighteenth century this area of Dublin was very fashionable but it fell into decline in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By 1982 twelve houses on this street had been demolished by the City Council as dangerous buildings, including the house next door. Number 35 was saved by Senator David Norris, a Joycean scholar who also lives on the street. With the help of many others and with funding from a variety of sources the work was completed and the Centre opened in June 1996. The Centre has been run for ten years by members of the Monaghan family, descendents of Joyce’s sister May.
Though Joyce never lived in this house, he has a connection with it through Prof. Denis J. Maginni who ran a Dance Academy here. Originally his name was Maginn, but he added an extra ‘i’ to make it more Italian sounding in keeping with his exotic profession. Maginni was a well-known and colourful character in Dublin and appears several times in James Joyce’s Ulysses. In the ‘Wandering Rocks’ episode he is described as wearing a "silk hat, slate frockcoat with silk facings, white kerchief tie, tight lavender trousers, canary gloves and pointed patent boots."
The Maginni Room, now the Café Ulysses, was originally the dining room of the house. The plasterwork is original, though the dancing figures in the medallions date from Maginni’s time. Though damaged, the plasterwork was mainly preserved under layers of paint and dirt.
The Kenmare Room is named in honour of the Earl of Kenmare whose townhouse this was when it was built in 1784. The plasterwork had disappeared completely by 1982 and was restored using photographs taken by Joyce’s friend, Constantine Curran. The ‘Charioteer with Winged Horses’ that you see here is also found in the library at Belvedere College and was a favourite theme of Michael Stapleton, the stuccadore.
On the walls here are reproductions of portraits of members of Joyce’s family. His mother May Murray (sketched from photographs by her great grandson Declan Joyce); his father John Stanislaus Joyce (this portrait commissioned by Joyce himself from the Irish portrait artist Patrick Tuohy in 1923, the year after Ulysses was published).
The Joyce family lived in houses similar to this one, though not in this one, and on the table in the Library is a folder with a list of Joyce’s Dublin addresses with photographs and details. Two portraits of Joyce hang in the Library, one by Jacques Emile Blanche, and one by Irish artist Harry Kernoff. (These are copies, the originals being part of the Poetry and Rare Books Collection at the State University of New York at Buffalo).
Back on the ground floor, if you continue outside to the yard, you will see the original door from No. 7 Eccles Street. In Ulysses this is Leopold Bloom’s address, but the house itself was demolished to make way for an extension to the Mater Hospital, though the door was saved and is on loan to us.
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