Bloomsday

Back in 1904, James Joyce stepped out for the first time with Nora Barnacle, the woman who would become his wife. And in Ulysses, it is the day that Leopold Bloom kicks around Dublin.

Bloomsday celebrates Thursday, 16 June 1904, the day immortalised in James Joyce’s 1922 novel Ulysses. The day is named after Leopold Bloom, one of the novel’s protagonist (the other being Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of Joyce’s 1916 novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Joyce’s literary alter ego). The novel follows Bloom’s life and thoughts — as well as those of Stephen and a host of other characters, real and fictional — from 8AM through to the early hours of the following morning. (From the Bloomsday website)

Have you read Ulysses? I am determined to, but as yet have failed in this quest. Part of my desire to is connected to Kate Bush. I love her song The Sensual World. It is all about Molly Bloom (the wife of Leopold Bloom), and is one of the sexiest songs I know. Kate originally didn't get the rights to use Joyce's words as she intended, but later the Joyce Estate relented and she re-recorded the song as Flower of the Mountain. You can listen to it on her Director's Cut album.

I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish Wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

More Bloomsdays

Bloomsday 2014 (Robyn)

James Joyce is an author I regard with equal amounts of admiration and guilt. Admiration? His statue in Dublin and the jaunty angle of his cigarette holder in photographs. And I love a man (or a woman) with an eye-patch. Guilt? Ulysses languishing on my list of books I know I should have read but haven’t.

____,____ ____ circus on ____, (Paul)

I am just a bit too young to have dressed up as a woman to go to the segregated screening of Ulysses. Have read some but never finished Ulysses. But for an insight into Joyce I like Roaratorio. Roaratorio, an Irish circus on Finnegan's Wake, a John Cage classic is available online.

Bloomsday 2009 (Marion)

Ulysses has been surrounded by controversy over the years – it was banned in America from 1921 until 1933. The 1967 film directed by Joseph Strick was controversial in part because of the use of the “f word” and in New Zealand was shown only to gender segregated audiences! (It’s all true folks – I was there as bright eyed varsity student). I seem to have survived unscathed and managed to read my way through both Ulysses and the slighter (in size), but no less linguistically challenging, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Ulysses weighs in at over 600 pages.

The famous/infamous Ulysses by Irish author James Joyce was published in 1922 - and the world is celebrating Ulysses100 in 2022. Tūranga is hosting a James Joyce exhibition with seven panels created by the Cultural Division from the Department of Foreign Affairs of Ireland. 

More James Joyce

• Ulysses by James Joyce
• Read books by James Joyce
• Read books about James Joyce
• Search eResources Discovery Search for information on James Joyce.