Today marks the hundreth anniversary of Bloomsday. The events in the life of the Bloom family of Dublin on this day are recorded in James Joyce's Ulysses. Sombody wanna pass me a Guiness so I can toast?

I didn’t even know about this before today. Thanks for sharing.
Happy Happy bloomsday everyone!

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~“There is no duty more obligatory than the repayment of kindness.”~
-Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

I think that we need to take emeraldcitizen to task for not informing us of this. If you don't mind, I'd rather have a snifter of Irish Mist....

Not a bad choice in potables, Mme. G, but a bit too sweet for my taste. Could I interest you in a double Old Bushmill's straight up? \_/

Lord help me, but I completely forgot about poor old Leopold and his figaries on this day...and juan? , mine's a pint of Harp


June 16, 2004 -- Dublin, says writer Nuala O'Faolin, may be the only city in the world that has both a patron saint and a patron book.

The saint, of course, is Patrick, who famously rid the island nation of snakes and converted pagans to Christianity. The book: James Joyce's Ulysses.

Joyce's relationship with his hometown was uneasy at best. The author left Ireland as a young man and lived most of his life abroad. But on Wednesday, Dubliners celebrate the 100th anniversary of "Bloomsday." That would be June 16, 1904 -- the day the book's events take place. And it's not just a Dublin thing -- Joyce fans all over the world are celebrating the unique literary event.

The novel, considered by many literary critics to be one of the greatest books ever written, describes in florid detail a single day in the life Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly and Stephen Dedalus, a young would-be-writer -- a character based on Joyce himself. Bloom, a Jewish advertising salesman, spends the day wandering through the streets and offices, pubs and brothels of 1904 Dublin.

The difficulty of reading Ulysses is as legendary as the book itself -- many of the passages are written in Joyce's signature stream-of-consciousness style, and there are countless allusions to stories of the Bible and Greek mythology. In some versions of the book, notes explaining the meaning of certain passages go on for more than 250 pages.

NPR's Lynn Neary traveled to Dublin for some tips on how to climb this literary Mount Everest. She discovered a Dublin that Joyce would hardly have recognized -- a European city with a skyline dominated by construction cranes, in a hurry to modernize.

But some things about both Dublin and Joyce, Neary says, will always remain the same:

"There are still those in Dublin who neither like nor understand James Joyce. And there are others who are offended by the way a city which once rejected Joyce now uses him and his work to attract tourist dollars. But a lot of people in the city have to come to this conclusion about the great James Joyce: He was, when all is said and done, just one of them -- a Dubliner." © NPR.org

Thank you JR for starting this topic, and EC for providing the history.

I'll celebrate with a good old fashioned sandslip if you don't mind, I'll just add a little extra Baily's Irish Cream to honor the day properly!


Happy Bloomsday everyone!
I wasn't suppose to bake a cake was I? I can't remember.

I am appalled and shocked at the misinformation provided by Juanruiz. He has always been a wonderful source of information and inspiration and it saddens me that he now resorts to belittling the Irish. Poor Seamus must be turning in his...oh, he isn't dead. Seamus must be absolutely beside himself with frustration, which I can understand despite my being English.

There are two N's in Guinness, Juan!
Sheesh!

Double sheesh. Talk about ironic - I missed the letter N from Juanruiz!

This post has been edited at member's request.afenton,

"There are two N's in Guinness, Juan!
Sheesh!"

If someone had passed me a bottle as I originally asked, I would have known that.
Or, I may have just thought I was seeing double.