Bloomsday in Dublin – a celebration of James Joyce’s Ulysses

Hands up how many people have read James Joyce’s entire 265,000-word masterpiece, Ulysses? Okay, so you haven’t yet, but you can still immerse yourself in Joyce’s Dublin for Bloomsday. FAST FACTS: - Ulysses was set over one day in Dublin – Thursday, June 16th 1904. - It’s called Bloomsday because James Joyce’s character was called Leopold Bloom - hence, Bloomsday. - Ulysses contains 265,000 words - Punctuation wasn’t big in Ulysses. Its final 24,048 words contained just two periods and one comma! - It was banned in the US for being ‘obscene’ until 1934 - Joyce’s last words were: “Does nobody understand?” There are plenty of places mentioned in Ulysses that you can visit, including: – James Joyce Tower in Sandycove – Sandymount Strand – Duke Street’s Davy Byrne’s (Leopold ate a gorgonzola sandwich with a glass of burgundy here. You can, too!) and The Bailey. – Sweny’s Chemist, Lincoln Place: no longer a dispensary, it’s now a quirky literary meeting place – The National Library: a favourite hangout for Joyce…and location for the Scylla and Charybdis episode – And The James Joyce Centre on Parnell Street For more information about Bloomsday, visit