Bloomsday in Dublin

[rostasi]

Yes, this is a disgrace.

Joyce has done more for

Dublin than Haughey. I was

there for the centenary in '04

and it was a wonderful celebration

that began months earlier, culminating

in extraordinary citywide Bloomsday events

straight out of Ulysses with a HUGE parade

of a complex musical variety thru Dublin streets!

I'd been there in '01, but wanted to really be a part

of this massive event in '04. It seems that other folks

in other countries are celebrating, but Dublin just couldn't

have the funeral and burial tomorrow instead. BTW...the David Norris

fellow liberally quoted in the article is a VERY fine performer - probably

the best known - during these festivities (which have gone on for over 50 years!)

article

On this canceled Bloomsday, life imitates art

But some call lack of festivities as unfair to Haughey, Joyce

By Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff | June 16, 2006

In what some see as a mark of respect, and some Joycean purists consider sacrilege, official commemorations marking Bloomsday, the single day in 1904 that forms the narrative in James Joyce’s great novel ‘‘Ulysses,’’ have been canceled today in Dublin because they coincide with the funeral and burial of Charles J. Haughey, Ireland’s most colorful and controversial prime minister.

Bertie Ahern, a Haughey protégé who is now Ireland’s longest-serving taoiseach, or prime minister, issued a statement saying it was appropriate that Haughey would be laid to rest on Bloomsday.

‘‘His affinity with the arts, his own extraordinary, colorful life were every bit as interesting as Joyce’s fictional hero Leopold Bloom,’’ Ahern said. ‘‘Being buried on Bloomsday is a coincidence I believe that Charlie would have deeply enjoyed.’’

But some, including David Norris, one of Ireland’s leading Joyce scholars, say the decision by the board of the James Joyce Centre in Dublin to cancel its annual Bloomsday festivities, while well-intentioned, is actually doing a disservice to the memory of both Joyce, arguably Ireland’s greatest writer, and Haughey, unquestionably Ireland’s most controversial leader.

‘‘At the end of the day, Charlie was a great Joycean,’’ Norris said in a telephone interview from Dublin, where he is a senator and lecturer at Trinity College. ‘‘I am quite confident that Charlie would never have dreamed of canceling Bloomsday. You can’t cancel Bloomsday. That’s like saying you can cancel Monday or Tuesday. And on the 16th of June, in Dublin, it will always be Bloomsday.’’

Indeed, Haughey was, like many Dubliners, one for keeping the day every 16th of June. A reporter once observed Haughey in a southside Dublin pub, having imbibed considerably more than the one glass of burgundy that Leopold Bloom consumes at Davy Byrne’s pub, recite from memory a long passage from ‘‘Ulysses.’’ Mr. Haughey’s companions cheered lustily, and he bowed gallantly.

Norris noted that Haughey died on June 13 and will be buried on June 16, as did Paddy Dignam, a character from ‘‘Ulysses’’ whose funeral is the focus of Chapter 6.

‘‘It’s a wonderful example of life imitating art,’’ said Norris, attributing to Haughey the ability to control the timing of his own death. ‘‘I think Charlie did it deliberately.’’

In the book, Bloom suggests Paddy Dignam had a quick death, the best way to die. In real life, Haughey suffered from prostate cancer for a decade, and in 2003 had to sell his beloved 300-acre estate, Kinsealy, in North Dublin to settle the tax bills that arose from disclosures that he accepted at least $12 million in kickbacks from business interests. All the while, tribunals investigating corruption tarnished his legacy, making him a figure more tragic than anything Joyce dreamed up.

Norris acknowledged it was Haughey’s genuine appreciation of Joyce that led him to have a soft spot for Haughey, whose politics swung considerably to the right of his. He noted that Haughey did much to support the arts, creating tax breaks for artists.

‘‘Charlie was many things,’’ he said, obliquely referring to the scandals. ‘‘But he was a great lover of life, and Charlie would be the first to tell you that life must go on, that the show must go on, and that Bloomsday must go on.’’

Norris said he thought it would be more appropriate to hold a moment of silence in Haughey’s memory during Bloomsday festivities. Despite the decision by the James Joyce Centre, Norris said he and others will carry on the annual tradition of dressing up in period costume, holding readings at various spots across Dublin and in Sandycove, the seaside village in South County Dublin where a Martello tower is the setting for the first chapter of ‘‘Ulysses.’’

‘‘I am going to perform,’’ Norris said. ‘‘I think Charlie would approve.’’

Edited June 16, 2006 by rostasi

[Matthew]

From the Onion, of course

Mad Lit Professor Puts Finishing Touches On Bloomsday Device

June 14, 2006

DUBLIN—Professor Hanlon O'Faolin, once called "mad" at the Royal Irish Academy for attempting to reanimate the traditional body of Celtic folktales with the power of elcectic multilingual puns, is readying his apoplectic Bloomsday Device for activation on June 16. "Yes! Yes, they laughed at me yes but now yes I will make them pay and yes!" O'Faolin wrote in a letters to the Irish Times, promising the destruction of Dublin on the same day portrayed in Joyce's Ulysses. "When the sun first strikes the Martello Tower, the first notes of 'The Rose of Castille' shall ring out, the streets shall run with rashers, kidneys, and sausages, and I shall forge in the smithy of Dublin's soul the uncreated conscience of my race!" Dublin police say they are working around the clock from profiles to create a portrait of the professor as a crazy man.

[rostasi]

Thanks for that.