16 Jun 2023
On This Day
16 June 2023 Cheryl

16 June 1904: The First Bloomsday

Bloomsday at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin

On Bloomsday, offal will be on the menu in some establishments. This comes from the celebrated passage where: “Mr. Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked their giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crust crumbs, fried hencod’s roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of scented urine.”  [1]

James Joyce’s novel Ulysses is set in Dublin and follows the life and thoughts of Leopold Bloom, the central character, and a host of others – real and fictional – from 8am on 16 June 1904 through to the early hours of the following morning.

Bloomsday is now celebrated all over the world. In Dublin, the day involves a range of cultural activities, including Ulysses readings and dramatisations, pub crawls, and other events. Enthusiasts often dress in Edwardian costume and retrace Bloom’s route around Dublin via landmarks. Devotees have even been known to hold marathon readings of the entire novel, some lasting up to 36 hours. Bloomsday has gained international recognition, with events taking place in numerous cities around the world, uniting fans and scholars of James Joyce’s work in celebration of his literary contributions.

Joyce started writing Ulysses in March 1914 but put it aside. On 16 June 1915, he wrote to his brother Stanislaus to say he had finished the first episode. After Ulysses was published in 1922, Joyce’s friends began to mark 16th June as Bloomsday.

Want to know what all the fuss is about, but don’t want to struggle through reading this challenging book? Let me help you out here.