Bloomsday to become a global event this year

Readings of Joyce’s Ulysses in 25 cities across four continents

Millner John Shevlin dressed as James Joyce at Smock Alley Theatre for the launch of the Bloomsday festival last year. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien/The Irish Times
Millner John Shevlin dressed as James Joyce at Smock Alley Theatre for the launch of the Bloomsday festival last year. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien/The Irish Times

Bloomsday this year will be an international affair with a 36 hour reading marathon that spans the globe.

Readings of James Joyce's Ulysses will begin tomorrow night at 9pm Irish time, which will be Bloomsday in Auckland, New Zealand. They will go on until 3.30am on Monday morning when there is a reading in San Francisco. They will be streamed live on globalbloomsday.com.

In total 25 cities in four continents will be participating in the readings.

Readings in Dublin will take place all day at the Martello tower in Sandycove all day on Sunday, which is Bloomsday, June 16th.

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The fictional events of that date in 1904 were immortalised by Joyce in Ulysses.

A fireworks display on Dún Laoghaire pier will kick off Bloomsday celebrations at 10.30pm tomorrow evening.

Hundreds of Joycean fans are set to for the area line up of Bloomsday celebrations including a James Joyce lookalike world record attempt on Sunday.

The traditional Bloomsday breakfast takes place at the Joyce Centre in North Great George's Street.

St Werburgh's Church on Werburgh Street will host the Dublin premier of Bloomsday Story by Robert Gogan.

This lighthearted approach will rattle through the whole book in the space of 100 minutes.

There will be a series of readings from Joyce at the Meeting House Square in Temple Bar and a number of other events in the area.

Fathers of Western Thought will do all 18 episodes of Ulysses on guitars and drum machines while Jimmy Fay will direct a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in the evening at the New Theatre in Essex Street East.

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy is a news reporter with The Irish Times