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"I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book." --James Joyce
Every year since at least 1954, fans of author James Joyce have celebrated Bloomsday on June 16-- the date (in 1904) when his Ulysses takes place. (Even in 1924 the word was used by friends presenting Joyce a bouquet.)
In many cities, attempts are made to read the entire book out loud. In Dublin, tourists dress up and retrace the routes of Joyce's characters.
Everywhere, alcohol is consumed in quantity.
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For Joyce, the special significance of 16 June 1904 was that on that date (or just after?) he had his first date with 20yo Nora Barnacle, a chambermaid he'd met on 10 June on Nassau street. She'd stood him up on the 14th (or 15th?) but he wrote her a note asking for another meeting, and by August ('heavenly summer') they were in love. (Some argue they had a sexual exchange on that first date. That was not so-- see x-rated section below #.)
More: article, overview, essay, info, fanpage, tribute, Gogarty links; 1904 links
Dublin newspapers for 16 June 1904: partial Irish Times; full Telegraph in PDF. If you can't view PDF files, you can auto-convert parts of it to a 250k HTML page via Adobe Access:
Dublin, Dublin???, Dublin?, Dublin?, Galway, Glasgow
NYC, NYC, Mass, Mass, Philadelphia, JohnsHopkins, LeMoyne, Bflo, Sarasota, Chicago, Champaign-Urbana, SF, Berkeley, SanDiego
Portland, Oregon: McMenamins' Kennedy School (16Jun evening); Borders Bookstore (17Jun)
The International James Joyce Foundation sponsors an annual symposium during Bloomsweek, alternating (mostly) between North American and European sites.
Irish Times usually does something special
2001
Internet: streaming
Dublin: report, 15Jun, 16Jun, week, ms exhibit, Beckett&
NYC, Chicago, LA, LA, Boston, Kansas City ditto, Utah, Sarasota FL, Palm Beach FL, San Diego CA, Berkeley; Philly 14Jun, Philly; Cincinnati, Buffalo; Anchorage AK
San Francisco CA: 14Jun at O'Reilly's, 622 Green st; 16Jun 2pm at Foley's, 243 O'Farrell st; 18Jun 7pm at Sunset Branch Library, 1305 18th ave 415-753-7130
Sacramento CA: 16Jun reading at Capitol Garage Coffee Shop.
Phoenix AZ: 2-4pm at Burton Barr Auditorium, Phoenix Public Library
Sydney OZ: Maritime Museum 10am-6pm phone: 9555 2540
Auckland NZ: Rakino's bar, High st, 8.30pm
Brazil, Norway, Melbourne OZ, Queensland; Ontario Canada, China
2000
New York City (simulcast on the Net/93.9FM 7pm-midnight EDT Windows Media Player) article
Ireland: Dublin, Dublin, Dublin, Dublin and Cork, Mullingar; Galway
Washington DC; Boston, Mass; Philadelphia
Portland, Oregon; Chico CA, Buffalo NY; Des Moines, Iowa; Coral Gables, Florida
Melbourne Australia [more]; Sydney [more], [more]
More: list
Dublin self-tour; Ulysses manuscript visits Dublin [more]
1999
Dublin, [more], Sandycove, breakfast, Boston tour, tourist flap, info
Galway; NYC [more]; Miami, [more] more; Washington DC; Brazil; Hungary; Melbourne; Manly, Sydney [more]; Toronto; Los Angeles (?) [more]; Martha's Vineyard; Pittsburgh; Philadelphia, [more]; Johns Hopkins U; Sacramento; Austin, Texas; Michigan; Buffalo
1998
Symposium in Rome
Dublin, Dublin, [more], [more], more, postmortem, backlash
San Francisco; Boston; Miami; Spokane; Japan; NYC; Paris; Melbourne; Pittsburgh; Philadelphia; Kansas City; Maine; Austin Texas
1997
Cyberday; NYC [more]; Melbourne; Pittsburgh; Kansas City; Northern California [more]; Amsterdam; Delphi
1996
Symposium in Zurich [info in German]
Galway; Pittsburgh; Melbourne; radio; Kansas City; St Louis; Wilson miscalc
Earlier
Sydney 94; Sydney 89; Sydney 88
1993 reading: [33 hours]
NYC: 1990?-1993]
Netnews: 1983, 1988, 1990, 1994, 1995
1979: reading [28 hours]
1924: friends send Joyce bouquet of white and blue hydrangeas (in hospital for eyes). He writes in notebook: "Today 16 of June 1924 twenty years after. Will anybody remember this date."
Moon phase that day; natal chart [source]; calendar
(Starting in 1880, Dublin Mean Time was 25 minutes behind Greenwich Mean Time.)
Also on that date, ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto, [more], mathematicians, movies
poem, ditto; essay, Swedish essay, Spanish
Dublin tours, Tower Museum ditto, ditto
Gallery of Bloomsday cards
Essay competition winner
Page of Pigeonhouse's Bloomsday ledger
Bookstore in Kansas City
A band called Bloomsday
A sandwich
A footrace in Spokane (in May!) [history]; a bench
Computer consultants
Episode of 'The Tick'
It is often asserted that on their first date, 16 June 1904, Nora made a man of Joyce by unbuttoning his fly, etc...
This is based on this letter to Nora five years later, on 3 Dec 1909: "It was you yourself, you naughty shameless girl who first led the way. It was not I who first touched you long ago down at Ringsend. It was you who slid your hand down down inside my trousers and pulled my shirt softly aside and touched my prick with your long tickling fingers and gradually took it all, fat and stiff as it was, into your hand and frigged me slowly until I came off through your fingers, all the time bending over me and gazing at me out of your quiet saintlike eyes... Did you never never, never feel a man's or a boy's prick in your fingers until you unbuttoned me?"
It's quite impossible that he could have believed it was her first time, if it was on their first date! But this letter of 29 August 1904 makes it clear it was a very recent event at that time (ie, late August): [SL26]
"...I have noticed a certain shyness in your manner as if the recollection of that night troubled you. I however consider it a kind of sacrament and the recollection of it fills me with amazed joy. You will perhaps not understand at once why it is that I honour you so much on account of it as you do not know much of my mind..."
The likeliest date is 27 August, after Joyce sang at the Antient Concert Rooms with John McCormack. [more]
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