In Bloom: Australia joins a global celebration of Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses on June 16.

Leopold Bloom spent a day wandering the labyrinthine confines of Dublin in Joyce’s Ulysses, but almost 60 years after ‘Bloom’s day’ was first marked in Ireland his spirit is being evoked as far afield as Perth and Melbourne.

What is it about Joyce and his protagonist Bloom that continues to endure?

Prof Ronán McDonald, Chair in Modern Irish Studies at the University of New South Wales, believes Joyce’s masterpiece marked a turning point in literary history.

“James Joyce’s Ulysses revolutionized the novel,” says Prof McDonald. “Through its use of stream of consciousness technique and a cornucopia of other stylistic experimentations, this masterpiece took artistic creativity into areas of the human psyche, history and myth, where it had never been before.

“Written during the First World War, when modern ideas of heroism and militarism were dismembering bodies on an industrial scale, this novel is a celebration of the physical body in all its activities, the ordinary, the fleeting moment, the vast, blooming, confused pain and pleasures of one single day.”

The day was June 16, 1904, the same day, McDonald notes, that Joyce first ‘stepped out’ with the woman who would later be his wife, Nora Barnacle.

Fast forward to June 16, 2012, where there is ample opportunity to take in Joycean fare as vast and as blooming around Australia.

Sydney is going for it, doing its best impression of Dollymount Strand with Bloomsday On Bondi, a day-long celebration to be held at the iconic beach’s pavilion.

The event kicks off at 10am with A Morning With Buck Mulligan, a ticketed event with breakfast included.

An eclectic ensemble of professional actors and writers will read from Ulysses through the day before the finale featuring rehearsed readings by members of O’Punksky’s Theatre Company with Irish music and a full bar.

Tickets are still on sale for both breakfast and finale but the remainder of the day’s entertainment, including a screening of Pat Murphy’s film Nora, are free.

Organiser Maeliosa Stafford of O’Punsky’s describes Bloomsday as a second St Patrick’s Day and a chance to celebrate the work of arguably Ireland’s finest literary export.

“He’s a great writer and I love reading him and hearing him read,” Stafford says.

“It’s a celebration of a day and a day in the life of a city.”

The complexity of Ulysses has kept people coming back to Bloomsday and Joyce’s wider works.

“I think because scholars all over the world find more depth and structure in it all the time … it’s a complex piece of work and I still don’t quite understand it all myself.”

Stafford says the event organisers have a healthy dose of nerves in advance of the beachside event.

“You want the day to be a success and you hope that everyone who gives a reading is entertaining.”

He added: “The challenge is there as well to make it as successful as possible for the Irish community.”

:: Bloomsday in Brisbane

James Donegan, director of the Bloomsday celebrations at Brisbane’s Irish Club, has been working tirelessly alongside his wife Pauline, the event’s producer, to ensure this year’s festivities go off without a hitch.

He describes the preparations for the show ‘a cooperative effort’ and commends former lecturer Gary McLenna for his assistance.

“We’ve actually made it a Joyce celebration this year,” Mr Donegan said. “We will be including Ulysses of course and Bloomsday will have a big position in the readings of the night, but we’re also including readings from A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, readings from Dubliners and just one from Finnegans Wake because people find it extremely difficult, including myself.

“We’re doing 10 readings of Joyce’s poetry as well,” he continued.

Mr Donegan has been involved in putting the Brisbane Bloomsday celebrations together for the past 15 years and says there is still a great interest among the local community.

“The centenary was the highlight when it came to the Bloomsday celebrations in Brisbane and that was 2004. It’s a very good mixture of Australians, local literati and Irish people as well.”

:: Bloomsday in Melbourne

In Melbourne, a theatrical homage to Ulysses takes centre stage. The New Ballroom at Trades Hall hosts a radical production, Yes, Yes, Yes!, which chronicles the final chapter of Ulysses, Penelope.

Directed by Brenda Addie, the performance is described as an emphatically 21st century production, celebrating all women through the part Irish, part Spanish Molly Bloom

The show features a hugely talented cast which includes Debra Low, Drew Tingwell, Suhasini Seelin and Jamaica Zuanetti, all of whom play Joyce’s Molly at different stages of her life.

“We’re doing what we have done for many years, which is to mount a full scale professional production of an adaptation of the Molly chapter in the final chapter of Ulysses,” Dr Frances Devlin-Glass, Director of Bloomsday in Melbourne explained.

“It will be quite different from anything ever seen before, she’s out of bed, she’s many and that’s quite a challenge really.

“It is a monologue, it’s not designed for theatre but we have a very inventive, resourceful, artistic director in Brenda Addie and she’s making sure it will be a vastly entertaining, really diverse production.

“We’re very interested in a multi-age, multi-ethnic Molly. We’re very interested in how Joyce saw her,” she added.

:: Bloomsday in Perth

The Perth-based Australian Irish Heritage Association (AIHA) is also busy preparing for their Bloomsday event, from 8pm.

The Irish Club Theatre will host readings by local celebrities and music from the Edwardian era.  AIHA President Denis Bratton says the event will be one to remember.

“It’s going to be a great celebration. We’re asking people to come dressed in Edwardian costume,” he said.

“The readings are going to be performed in character and interspersed with song. The idea is for it to leave us understanding what Ulysses is truly about.”

Readers include Gerry Gannon, Ric Hearder, Peter Holland, Damien O’Doherty, Diana Warnock alongside the Irish Theatre Players’ Tony Bray, Marian Byrne, Niall O’Toole and Judy Walsh.

:: Bloomsday in Adelaide

Adelaide will also mark Bloomsday for the first time in several years. Festivities kick off at 1pm at the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel, where guests can look forward to readings and entertainment.

Celebrations will then move an hour away to the town of Dublin, with a bus on hand to transfer those in attendance.

Coordinator Michael Perth explains more: “There’s been various things over the years in Adelaide but we haven’t done anything in a while so everyone’s looking forward to this.

“We’ve got a Dublin down the road from us here in Adelaide so we decided what better place to hold the Bloomsday celebrations.

“We’ll have some songs of the period and we’re encouraging all the women and men to dress up in Edwardian clothes,” added Perth.

– Luke O’Neill and Lorna Nolan

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell

The premier of New South Wales Barry O’Farrell will officially launch the Bloomsday On Bondi celebrations on June 16, the Irish Echo has learned.

Premier O’Farrell will join a motley crew of fine actors, acclaimed writers and other luminaries at the famous beach for a day-long celebration of James Joyce’s Ulysses at Bondi Pavilion.

June 16 is the day on which Joyce set his famous novel and has become known as Bloomsday, after Leopold Bloom, a central character of the book.

Bloomsday On Bondi begins with a traditional Irish breakfast at 10am which will be accompanied by readings from Ulysses by, among others, acclaimed actors Maeliosa Stafford and Chris Haywood.

Consul General Of Ireland Caitríona Ingoldsby, one of the day’s organisers, said she was very pleased that the premier had agreed to come along and support this new Irish cultural festival.

“We’re delighted that the Premier is able to join us to officially launch our Bloomsday festivities,” she said.

“This celebration of Irish literature and music is another example of the huge number of multicultural events being organised by communities in Sydney with the valuable support of the authorities.’

The choice of Bondi as the location for the event is no accident, Ms Ingoldsby explains.

“We have chosen the location because of Bondi Beach’s iconic status around the world, because of the high number of Irish people who have made their temporary or permanent home there, and because beach scenes and proximity to the sea are such important elements of Joyce’s novel,” she said.

The all-day event will feature readings from Joyce’s work, theatrical performances, film and Irish music at the Bondi Pavilion on Saturday 16 June.

There will also be an exhibition on the Life and Work of James Joyce commissioned by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Mr O’Farrell will officially launch Sydney’s Bloomsday celebrations during the morning session (10am–midday) where guests will enjoy a delicious Bloomsday breakfast inspired by Irish favourites.

Expect a few famous faces later in the day as well, as among our readers are former federal Minister Susan Ryan AO, writers Mark Dapin, Ursula Dubosarsky and Suzanne Leal, poet Jamie Grant and actors Chris Haywood and Zoe Carides,

Tickets are required for the breakfast ($15) and evening ($20) sessions.

The afternoon session with readings from Ulysses  and Irish music from 12.30 – 16.00 will be open to the public free of charge.

To book your tickets, click here.

The man himself. Or is it?

The Abbey Theatre will lead Bloomsday celebrations in Australia this year, with the cast of Terminus gathering at the State Library of New South Wales on Wednesday to deliver lines from James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Bloomsday, Wednesday June 16, is the date that celebrates Leopold Bloom’s adventures in Joyce’s Ulysses, a novel set entirely on that date in 1904.

A number of events are being held throughout the country to celebrate Bloom’s meandering journey around Dublin.

Terminus, produced by the Abbey Theatre, is currently showing at the Opera House.

Two of the three cast members, Declan Conlon and Olwen Fouéré, are set to give readings from Ulysses and Finnegans Wake on the steps of the Mitchell Library. The event has been organised by the Consulate of Ireland.

“We are delighted to partner with the NSW State Library on this new event, and even more pleased that the cast of the Abbey Theatre’s Terminus have agreed to take part,” said Consul General Caitríona Ingoldsby.

“Bloomsday is now an international event and presents an ideal opportunity to showcase across the globe Ireland’s strong achievements in literature and the arts more generally.

“That actors from the critically acclaimed Abbey Theatre production of Terminus are taking part clearly demonstrates that Ireland’s strength in culture and the arts is not just a historical phenomenon but a national asset that continues to flourish and to develop.”

It has specifically been arranged for lunchtime so that CBD office workers can hear Ulysses being read by stage actors. The event is free and open to all.

Elsewhere in Sydney, the John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies at the University of New South Wales and the Consulate General of Ireland have partnered to present an evening event at the Gaelic Club in Sydney.

The community venue will host readings from Ulysses, Dubliners and Finnegans Wake this Wednesday, June 16.

Irish actors Maeliosa Stafford, John-Paul Hussey, Romy Farrelly, Zoe Norton Lodge, Paul Armstrong and Michael Terry will participate.  Longford-born writer John Connell will join them.

:: Celebrations around Australia

Meanwhile, at the Irish Club in Perth, Colm O’Doherty will present an exploration of gender issues depicted in Ulysses’ comedic but hallucinatory night town brothel chapter, Circe.

Editor Sean Byrne will deliver a parliamentary investigation into the Dáil with a proposed recommendation to resurrect James Joyce to save the Irish Economy.

Drawing-room music will celebrate Joyce as a tenor.

The Shadow Minister for Culture and the Arts John Hyde will join Gerry Gannon, Ingle Knight, Damien O’Doherty, Diana Warnock, Marian Byrne and Tony Bray. Soprano Fiona Mariah, Soprano and baritone Barry Preece will also sing.

Brisbane’s Irish Club will host the Bloomsday celebrations for Queenslanders. A night of readings and music kicks off from 7:00pm Wednesday at their Elizabeth Street venue.

Meanwhile Joyce enthusiasts in Melbourne can attend a seminar at the University of Melbourne’s Open Stage Theatre.

The 2011 Bloomsday seminar – ‘Joyce and the Nationalists’ – investigates the author’s engagement with political movements and his fascination with Ireland’s archaic literary tradition.

The Open Stage Theatre will also interpret the Cyclops chapter of Ulysses with a stage adaption.

The adaption, An Irishman And A Jew Go Into A Pub, is directed by Brenda Addie and set in Barney Kiernan’s pub, a location “lousy with Fenians, victims and anti-Semites, high on Guinness, poitín, and outrage”.

Melbourne James Joyce enthusiasts Rosie Rodiadis and Uschi Felix gear up for the annual Bloomsday celebrations on June 16.

Today, June 16, has always been the holiest of high holidays for fans of James Joyce. It is, of course, the day in 1904 his novel Ulysses is set.

Known to those of a literary bent as Bloomsday, after its hero Leopold Bloom, June 16 is the day readers around the world celebrate with Dubliners what many consider to be the greatest novel ever written.

Bloomsday has been celebrated in one form or another in Australia for decades. In Melbourne the day has been observed since 1994.

This year’s Bloomsday festival in the city consists of three events which take place today: the burlesque Carnivale of Night-town (performed at 1pm and 7.30pm at Trades Hall); a seminar with papers by Prof Joy Damousi and Dr Frances Devlin-Glass; and a dinner with saucy readings at La Notte in Lygon Street.

For full details click here.

“Night-town is a place of confrontation,” said Dr Devlin-Glass, the director of Bloomsday in Melbourne and an honorary associate professor at Deakin University.

“Bloom is forced to confront his demons – the ‘what-ifs’ of his marital choices, his education in a macho kind of sexuality at the hands of his grandfather, his own preferences for more womanly ways of doing sexuality and gender, his attraction to motherhood, masochism and frillies, his hitherto repressed knowledge that he is a cuckold, and his sense of the loss of his beloved son, Rudi, at 11 days,” she said.

In Sydney, Bloomsday is being celebrated at the Friend in Hand Hotel, Cowper Street, Glebe. A night of readings, music and song starts at 7 pm and admission is free. For details click here.

In the south western Sydney suburb of Liverpool, Bloomsday events start at 12 noon in the local library at 170 George St.

Artist Alan Healy gathers writers, visual artists, musicians and those with an interest in the work of Joyce, to read, recite and sing their way through Bloomsday.

Master of ceremonies for the day in Liverpool is broadcaster Mike Bailey. All are welcome and the event is free. Click here for more.

In the national capital, the Canberra Friends of Ireland are asking like-minded souls to join them at 7.45 pm at Ulysses restaurant. Music, fun, readings and craic are promised, and audience participation is welcomed. Call (02) 6230 2153 for details.

So just what is Bloomsday exactly?

Bloomsday, June 16, is the day on which James Joyce set his classic novel Ulysses. All the events in the novel take place on that day in 1904.

It is said that Joyce chose the date as it commemorated his first ‘date’ with Nora Barnacle, who would become his wife.

Named after Leopold Bloom, the book’s central character, Bloomsday was first celebrated in 1954 when writers Patrick Kavanagh and Flann O’Brien visited locations mentioned in the book, reading and drinking as they went!

by Pádraig Collins