It is a big day for us English majors. Each 16th of June, folks all over the world (but especially in Dublin) follow the footsteps of Leopold Bloom, the main character in James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. It is Bloomsday, a literary celebration. Joyce’s novel takes place on the 16th of June, 1904.
For many, Bloomsday is a celebration of James Joyce himself, not just of the novel, and this is fitting, for Joyce chose June 16 as the date of his novel not randomly. It happened to be the day that he first went out with Nora Barnacle, the woman who would eventually become his wife.
You might celebrate Bloomsday with a reading of Ulysses. You might stop at the apothecary to purchase a bar of lemon soap. Certainly there will be stops to be made at pubs, and ale is known to play a big part in a good Bloomsday celebration.
James Joyce was first aware of people celebrating Bloomsday in 1924, just two years after the publication of Ulysses. In 1954, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the events in the book, a more formal pilgrimage through Dublin was organized. Nowadays, you are likely to find Bloomsday enthusiasts ’round the globe, dressed in Edwardian garb and quoting James Joyce each 16th of June. How wonderful is that?
Image: Poets Patrick Kavanagh and Anthony Cronin on their 1954 Bloomsday Pilgrimage. National Library of Ireland on The Commons, 16 June 1954 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.
A mixed media collage of mine is part of the Permanent Collection of the Coral Springs Museum of Art, titled BLOOM’S DISTRACTION. Brian Knicely was the director of the museum at that time. Barbara O’keefe, the previous director, asked for an art work of mine for the museum’s collection.
Joyce’s character, Leopold Bloom was such an interesting character, whose mind played with mischief while his wife was ill and confined to bed.
I loved reading Joyces’s novel, Ulysses
Grace Fishenfeld