Start Date: 09 June 2008 End Date: 18 June 2008 Venue: Dublin Time: Various Price: Various Save to: MyDublin

Bloomsday 16 June 2008

June 16th is BLOOMSDAY, 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 from the 9th to the 16th June, 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 and convivial activities of all sorts which in some way connect with Ulysses, its author and its world.


Have a look at the programme and join the celebrations!


MONDAY 16th JUNE EVENTS HIGHLIGHTS:

IN SANDYCOVE, DALKEY AND DUN LAOGHAIRE:

James Joyce Museum at the Tower in Sandycove
The James Joyce Museum at the Tower in Sandycove, where Ulysses opens, will be open all day from 8.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. for readings and commemorations. Barry McGovern will this year read the second half of the ‘Circe’ episode of Ulysses at intervals during the morning and early afternoon.
Visitors are invited to contribute to the celebrations and to take inspiration from the museum’s wonderful collection of original Joycean material. New on display are a first edition of Chamber Music and a programme from an 1880s Dublin performance by Hengler’s Circus (at which Leopold Bloom was approached by ‘an intuitive particoloured clown in quest of paternity’).
The museum is open daily from April to September (normal hours: Monday to Saturday 10.00 am to 1.00 pm, 2.00 pm to 5.00 pm; Sunday and public holidays 2.00 pm to 6.00 pm). For information tel/fax 01 2809265 or e-mail joycetower@dublintourism.ie

Bloomsday Breakfast will be served in local restaurants in Sandycove and Glasthule, where Bloomsday is customarily celebrated with a street festival and unofficial and impromptu readings and performances throughout the day. Breakfast in Caviston’s and Juggy’s Well rolls on into brunch at Odell’s Restaurant and Fitzgerald’s pub. More information from Caviston’s at 01 2809120 or Fitzgerald’s at 01 2804469.

The Forty Foot bathing place beside the Tower, where Buck Mulligan swims in Ulysses, is traditionally the place for a Bloomsday plunge to start the day. A small voluntary contribution towards its upkeep may be made at the entrance.

Nearby in Dalkey, Dalkey Castle and Heritage Centre will mark the day with exhibitions on local Joyce and literary connections and, at 3.00 pm, a recreation of the schoolroom scene in the second episode of Ulysses, which is set in the neighbourhood. This is followed by a guided Joycean walk of the area. At 8.00 pm the Dalkey Heritage Centre presents a Joycean Evening of extracts from his works and music and songs either sung by Joyce or featured in his books. Tickets for the schoolroom scene and walk are €10, and those for the Joycean Evening are €15. Early booking is advisable as numbers are limited. For information tel. 2858366, e-mail diht@indigo.ie or website http://www.dalkeycastle.com

The Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire
Do you hear what I'm seeing?
Ireland’s best-known Joycean, Senator David Norris, brings Joyce’s works and words to life in his ever-popular one-man show, presented at The Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire at 1.00 pm. Tickets cost €10 / €8 concessions and booking is required. Contact the Pavilion Theatre 01 231 2929 or online at http://www.paviliontheatre.ie

IN DUBLIN CITY CENTRE:

Here, there and everywhere the Balloonatics theatre company will be putting Joyce on the streets for the twenty-first year in succession, with re-enactments from Ulysses on the original locations, formal and informal readings on street corners, in pubs and in hotels, and walks on the trail of Leopold Bloom. No money or booking is required for the street events – just come and join in.
Their first rendezvous is at 8.00 am outside Aurora on the corner of Eccles Street and Dorset Street to follow Bloom’s morning walk. For further information contact balloonaticstc@yahoo.com or tel 087-9305496.

8.00 am BLOOM’S MORNING WALK with the Balloonatics. Meet at Aurora, the site of Larry O'Rourke's, the pub on the Eccles Street/ Upper Dorset Street corner.
The odyssey begins. Start your Bloomsday on location with Leopold Bloom as he buys a kidney and prepares breakfast for his wife, himself and the cat.

8.00 am, 9.30 am and 11.00 am: DENNY BLOOMSDAY BREAKFAST at the James Joyce Centre. On Bloomsday the Centre becomes ‘the heart of the Hibernian metropolis’ and will have activities all day, starting with its customary Bloomsday Breakfast, readings and song*.

8.45 am: CROSSTOWN TRAFFIC. The Balloonatics follow their re-enactment in Eccles Street with a walk past various Joycean sites on the way to Westland Row.

10.00 am INTO THE LAND OF THE LOTUS. Meet the Balloonatics at Westland Row, under the railway bridge. Bloom collects a secret letter, looks on at a church service and picks up some lotions. The ‘Lotus-Eaters’ episode will never be the same again once you've visited the sites where it is set.

10.00 am – 5.00 pm: The Chapterhouse of St Mary’s Abbey, in Meetinghouse Lane off Mary’s Abbey, is the scene of the reverend Hugh C. Love’s visit in ‘Wandering Rocks’. The Chapterhouse will be open to the public on Bloomsday from 10 am to 5pm and a reading by the Balloonatics will take place at 3 pm. For further information tel: 01 6476587 or 01 8331618.
e mail: pauline.kennedy@opw.ie

10.00 am – 5.00 pm: REJOYCE’N ART! An art exhibition at the Basin Club, 39 Blessington Street, Dublin 7. The Basin Club is a community resource centre for people with mental health difficulties, and is connected with Schizophrenia Ireland / the Lucia Foundation, named after James Joyce’s daughter. The twenty works by the Club’s members in the exhibition are available for sale. The exhibition continues to 20th June.

11.00 am – 2.00 pm: BLOOMSDAY READINGS in Meeting House Square, Temple Bar. Held in former years in the James Joyce Centre’s own building, the Centre’s traditional readings from Ulysses – provided by local celebrities, esteemed politicians, international diplomats, and volunteers from the audience - move this Bloomsday to a new location. Admission is free, no booking is required, seats are available, and you can stay and listen as long as you like.

11.00 am, 12.00 noon: BLOOMSDAY WALK, a guided walking tour from the James Joyce Centre*.

11.30 am: WALKING WITH MR BLOOM: A guided walking tour following the eighth chapter of Ulysses will take place twice during the day, once in the morning starting at 11.30 am and again in the afternoon at 2.30 pm. This classic Bloomsday walking tour has been an established part of the day’s programme for the past sixteen years. It begins at the main entrance to the General Post Office (GPO) in O’Connell Street. There is a charge of €12.00 per person. Places are limited and advance booking is advisable. Guide's Name: David Harrington. For information and booking contact Beatrice Healy at 01-454 5943 or beatrice@iol.ie.

12.30 pm I HATE DIRTY EATERS. Meet the Balloonatics at the Joyce Statue on North Earl Street. The tour runs via Davy Byrne’s, Duke Street, to the National Museum, Kildare Street. Join Bloom as he crosses the heart of the city in search of a decent eating place. Walking tour based on the ‘Laestrygonians’ chapter of Ulysses.

THE DIDDLEM CLUB is ready to ambush the public with more inventive Bloomsday madness this year. Watch out for them outside Davy Byrne’s pub in Duke Street at 1.00 pm.

2.00 pm, 3.00 pm: BLOOMSDAY WALK, a guided walking tour from the James Joyce Centre.

2.00 pm: MARKS & SPENCER BLOOMSDAY TEA at the James Joyce Centre (first sitting).

2.30 pm: WALKING WITH MR BLOOM:
A guided walking tour following the eighth chapter of Ulysses will take place twice during the day at 2.30 pm. This classic Bloomsday walking tour has been an established part of the day’s programme for the past sixteen years. It begins at the main entrance to the General Post Office (GPO) in O’Connell Street. There is a charge of €12.00 per person. Places are limited and advance booking is advisable. Guide's Name: David Harrington. For information and booking contact Beatrice Healy at 01-454 5943 or beatrice@iol.ie

3.00 pm: MOST HISTORIC SPOT IN ALL DUBLIN. Meet the Balloonatics at
St Mary’s Abbey Chapterhouse, off Capel Street, for a performance of the chapterhouse scene from ‘Wandering Rocks’ on its original location. A reading from ‘Hades’ uses the hallowed shades of St Mary’s to recreate the sepulchral atmosphere of Bloom’s attendance at the funeral in Glasnevin cemetery.

4.00 pm: MARKS & SPENCER BLOOMSDAY TEA at the James Joyce Centre (second sitting).

4.00 pm: BLOOMSDAY WALK, a guided walking tour from the James Joyce Centre (last official ramble of the day).

8.00 pm: HIMSELF AND NORA: a musical reading at the Mill Theatre, Dundrum.
Composer Jonathan Brielle presents a full reading of his acclaimed new musical about the love story of James Joyce and Nora Barnacle with some of Broadway’s leading actors – Matt Bogart, Kaitlin Hopkins and Jim Price. Tickets €20/€18 concession, booking required. Contact the Mill Theatre at 01 2969340 or online at http://www.milltheatre.com

8.00 pm: MOLLY BLOOM from James Joyce’s Ulysses Paris 1922: Smock Alley Studio, Essex Street.

Imaginative members of the public will also be taking matters into their own hands – reading at the Joyce Tower, swimming at the Forty Foot, lunching on Burgundy and Gorgonzola cheese in Davy Byrne’s, buying lemon soap in Sweny’s in Lincoln Place, behaving unspeakably on Sandymount Strand and finding new and exciting ways to celebrate Ulysses.

AFTER BLOOMSDAY

When the dust subsides, the James Joyce Centre will still be open (Tuesday – Saturday, 10.00 am – 5.00 pm; Sunday 12.00 noon – 5.00 pm), and so will the James Joyce Museum at the Tower in Sandycove (Monday – Saturday, 10.00 am – 1.00 pm. 2.00 pm – 5.00 pm; Sunday 2.00 pm – 6.00 pm).

The Yeats exhibition continues at the National Library, and the Gogarty exhibition continues at the Dublin Writers Museum.

Molly Bloom continues at Smock Alley Studio until 21st June.

Himself and Nora – A Musical Reading has its final performance at the Mill Theatre, Dundrum on Tuesday 17th June at 8.00 pm.

The Tower continues daily at 1.10 pm (Monday – Saturday) at Bewley’s Café Theatre, Grafton Street, until 28th June.

The Rejoyce’n Art exhibition continues at the Basin Club until 20th June.

Wednesday, 18th June
Passages from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, Mary Ellen Bute’s little seen 1967 film adaptation of Joyce’s novel, will be screened by the Irish Film Archive at 6.30 pm. Filmmaker and theatre director Alan Gilsenan who made a series of short films for the National Library's 2004 Joyce exhibition will introduce the screening.
The film will be shown at the Irish Film Institute, 6 Eustace Street, Dublin 2. Tickets €9.20 (concessions €7.75). Bookings, enquiries: tel 01-6795744.

FULL PROGRAMME
http://www.jamesjoyce.ie

FURTHER INFO
http://www.jamesjoyce.ie
Tel. +353 1 878 8547/+353 1 280 9265