Bloom’s Day Observances Set Around Globe

(Dublin) They’ll be wearing boater hats in Rio de Janeiro, sporting parasols in Seville, dressed in bloomers in Nairobi and draped in Edwardian stripe jackets in Paris. Some will be riding antique bicycles while others will be reading aloud passages from Ulysses on street corners.

On Bloom’s Day, June 16, James Joyce fans all over the world will, in their own whimsical ways, once again pay homage to Leopold Bloom, hero of Joyce’s story set on June 16, 1904 in Dublin.

The novel, called the greatest piece of fiction of the 20th Century, begins at 7 Eccles Street in Dublin town with Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman, and his wife Molly frying up sheep kidneys for breakfast. It then follows Bloom as he negotiates the streets of the city 1113 years ago.

Participants from Zurich to London remember Bloom’s epic journey, a blueprint of Dublin at the turn of the last century, with a glass of Burgundy, mock turtle soup and a Gorgonzola sandwich for lunch (if in Dublin) at Davey Byrnes Pub on Duke Street (or perhaps Mulligan’s Pub over on Poolbeg). That’s where Leopold Bloom stopped to eat and later drink on that day.

Then the Dublin Bloom’s Dayers will most likely gather at the Ormand Hotel for another Guinness. That’s the place Bloom was tempted by the barmaids/sirens.

In Ulysses, Joyce’s love-hate relationship with Dublin, Bloom wanders the eccentric streets of one of Europe’s most fascinating cities. Today his groupies attempt to replicate his experience. If this kind of things sounds good to you connect to an Aer Lingus flight out of Denver. Slainte!