16 June 2018

Postcards for Bloomsday

Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, during which the events of his novel Ulysses (which is set on 16 June 1904) are relived. It is observed annually on 16 June in Dublin and around the world.

I should say that I haven't read the novel (yet?), but I sort of love the idea of this literary celebration. I wanted to mark it with two postcards received from my friend Laura (the UK):
 
Patrick Kavanagh (1904 – 1967)
The first mention of "Bloom's Day" is to be found in a letter by Joyce of 27 June 1924.

On the 50th anniversary of the events in the novel, in 1954, John Ryan (artist, critic, publican and founder of Envoy magazine) and the novelist Brian O'Nolan organised what was to be a day long pilgrimage along the Ulysses route. They were joined by Patrick Kavanagh (on the postcard above), Anthony Cronin, Tom Joyce (a dentist who, as Joyce's cousin, represented the family interest) and AJ Leventhal (a lecturer in French at Trinity College, Dublin).


The Odyssey, 1946
The trip of Homer's Ulysses (the original one, isn't he?) that I have actually read, in a different version that the one featured on the postcard.

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