Bloomsday 2019

From “Ithaca,” my favorite episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922). In the wee small hours of the morning of June 17, 1904, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus arrive at Bloom’s place, 7 Eccles Street, Dublin:



Bloom, a wily Odysseus, gains entry by climbing over the railing, dropping down into the area, and opening the door to the kitchen. He then walks upstairs and lets Stephen in through the front door. No. 7 was torn down in 1967. The door and its frame were saved.

Other Bloomsday posts
2007 (The first page)
2008 (“Love’s Old Sweet Song”)
2009 (Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses)
2010 (Leopold Bloom, “water lover”)
2011 (“[T]he creature cocoa”)
2012 (Plumtree’s Potted Meat)
2013, 2013 (Bloom and fatherhood)
2014 (Bloom, Stephen, their respective ages)
2015 (Stephen and company, very drunk)
2016 (“I dont like books with a Molly in them”)
2017 (Bloom and Stephen, “like and unlike reactions to experience”)
2018 (“One sole unique advertisement”)

[Bloomsday : “the 16th of June 1904. Also: the 16th of June of any year, on which celebrations take place, esp. in Ireland, to mark the anniversary of the events in Joyce’s Ulysses.” Area : “a sunken court giving access to the basement of a house, separated from the pavement by railings, with a flight of steps providing access.” Definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary.]