The Celebration of Blooms Day in the area of James Joyce’s Museum
The celebration of Blooms Day has just ended in Dublin. This unusual festival is connected with the work of the famous Irish writer James Joyce, who gave the world the book Ulysses, written of advanced-guard.
The idea of this festival was made by Irish writers, who in 1954 (the first copy of the book was released in France in 1922) decided to go to the places that the main character of the romance, which is by the way the genre of ‘Ulysses’, Leopold Bloom went to. The book Ulysses describes one day in the life of Leopold Bloom, the date of this day is the 16th of June 1904, so of course the day of the venture was always on this date.
The venturing groups of writers were quite noticeable, so after the release of ‘Ulysses’ in Ireland (in 1960), this idea was copied by the Irish and the by the readers of Ulysses all over the world.
The celebration of Blooms Day is said to look very colourful and after we visited one of the places in which the festival is held for a week we were convinced. But to be more specific we visited the museum of James Joyce. This museum is located in a very unusual location, but again to be more specific in Mortello Tower, which you can find by going Southwards from Dun Laoghaire.
The insignificant tower-fort was chosen as James Joyce’s museum because he spent a short period of time in it. Now in this museum you can view the personal belongings of the writer and his living quarters in the building.
Now we’ll tell you how the Blooms Day festival was held in Dublin. We’ll start with the fact that the festival started a week before the 16th of June. Its programme included events that were connected with James Joyce and the hero of his book.
The main organizer of the Blooms Day festival is Dublin’s James Joyce Centre, who on every day of the festival organise something different on this theme. For example, a photo exhibition and dinner with a book publisher, or a bicycle/walk tour around the places connected with James Joyce and his main character. Actually, something that’s always included in the Blooms Day festival timetable is eating the food that James Joyce ate on this day: fried sheep kidneys, sandwiches with Italian cheese and burgundy wine.
Of course we could only see how the Blooms Day festival is held in the area of James Joyce’s museum. The amazement started as soon as we went onto the train station ‘Sandycove’ and on regular intervals saw people walking in XX century clothes. This was so unusual that it felt as if you have travelled back in time.
Here and there you could see very old fashioned hats, walking sticks, sun umbrellas and hear cafes playing music from that time. Even children from preschool were dressed by the motives of that century.
Another interesting event was the public readings of the book Ulysses by the participants of this festival. We witnessed these readings first hand when we were on the top floor of the tower of James Joyce’s museum. An interesting fact is that people put their names down to read and patiently waited for their turn despite the small space in the tower.
The weather was absolutely marvellous on this day, something that increased the festivity of the Blooms Day festival by ten fold. The pubs gladly gave burgundy wine and Italian cheese to the participants of this festival. Because of how great this festival was there, next year, we decided to see how the Blooms Day festival is run in the centre of Dublin.