Ulysses

to have been involved with many annual Bloomsday events in the James Joyce Centre, when in the company of my wife Joyce, Senator David Norris, my late cousin Ken Monaghan, and other Joyce enthusiasts, I re-enacted parts of the book. One of these occasions was the performance of the Sirens episode in the Ormond Hotel, and another when we recreated Paddy Dignan’s Funeral, with a horse-drawn hearse and cortège of carriages, travelling to Prospect Cemetery, Glasnevin, and stopping off on the way back in the Gravediggers pub for much-needed refreshments. A further occasion was following the wanderings of Leopold Bloom on his epic journey through Dublin, starting in the Maginni room of the James Joyce Centre for Bloomsday readings of the book with breakfast of the inner organs of beasts and fowls, and dropping in to Davy Byrne’s for a gorgonzola sandwich lunch and a glass of burgundy, not forgetting to purchase lemon soap on the way in Sweny’s Chemist, and finishing on the hill of Howth with Molly Bloom’s soliloquy. David Norris’s magnificent one man show Do You Hear What I’m Seeing?, which I had the pleasure of introducing in many places around the world, gave me a great insight into the humorous side of Joyce’s works.

I grew up in Dublin, so I am very familiar with the buildings and locations mentioned in Ulysses, and this helped to increase my interest as I first tackled reading the book in Bewley’s Café, a haunt of James Joyce. Places like the Martello Tower in Sandycove, now a Joyce museum, Holles Street Hospital, still delivering babies, Sandymount strand, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Fumbally Lane, Bullock Harbour, Crossguns Bridge, and of course the many pubs; Barney Kiernan’s, Davy Byrne’s, Brian Boru, Brazen Head, the Oval, the INTRODUCTION 11