Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

I thought a link to the Wikipedia article on Bloomsday would save me having to explain what it is, but clearly I was mistaken. So I'm not quite sure where to begin.

Erm. So James Joyce, right? Wrote Ulysses. Set in Dublin on June 16th, 1904. The day he met his future wife, Nora. The book is based on Homer's Odyssey, with each chapter corresponding to an episode in the Odyssey. Each chapter is also one hour in the main characters' (Stephen Dedalus, also found in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Leopold Bloom) day. Each chapter is also written in a different style (or technique), for example first person narration or stream-of-consciousness, and (according to Linati and Gilbert, who proposed differing thematic correlations) focuses on a colour and an organ. And perhaps other things, but I can't remember. For example, Chapter 11 corresponds to the tale of the Sirens in Homer's Odyssey, with Bloom watching two attractive barmaids while dining at the Ormonde hotel in a chapter full of people singing and musical references.

So every June 16th (since sometime in the 1950s) 'Bloomsday' is celebrated in Dublin. People roughly follow the book's action, with noted events including eating "the inner organs of beasts and fowls" for breakfast:

Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod’s roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine. (Ulysses)

Accordingly, I made my way to Sandycove/Glasthule yesterday to have this yummy breakfast. But I got a bit muddled, and thought I was going to Sandymount (Bloom thinks smutty thoughts on the beach in Sandymount later in the day). So I got a bus to Sandymount and walked to the nearest Martello tower. But it wasn't the one. So I kept walking south. And then I realised that the Martello tower would have to be near the Forty Foot, which is near Dun Laoghaire, which is a long walk from Sandymount. And then John sent me a text saying he'd meet me at the DART station in Sandycove. And I realised I was in the wrong place (thankfully I had nearly two hours to kill between stepping off my bus and meeting John). So I asked some women if I was heading the right direction for the Sandycove DART station, and they said I was but there was no way I'd manage to walk it. How right they were. I got on a DART in Booterstown instead, and it was about five stops to Sandycove. I'm glad I stopped to ask.

Anyway, I made it to Glasthule in plenty of time. People in Edwardian costumes sporting boaters were everywhere. It was all quite jolly. So we had the 'Joyce Special' in Juggy's Well. It was surprisingly tasty. There was a woman painting people's faces. I really wanted a moustache, but I was too afraid to ask for one. We wandered around Glasthule for a while, waiting for John's friend Dorothea. We tried to get breakfast for her, but it was going to cost €18 and consist of four courses which seemed a little excessive. So she popped into Caviston's for some gorgonzola and bread, a little ahead of time but a sensible choice.

We strolled along to the Martello Tower (the right one this time) and debated whether or not to go inside. It cost €6 and we weren't entirely convinced it was worthwhile. We flipped a coin which told us to go in, but we still weren't convinced, so we went and sat on some rocks instead. That was lovely, probably the nicest part of the day. The rocks were covered in very sharp barnacles, so we didn't clamber too much, but when we were leaving I persuaded John to climb back the long way over some exciting rocks with me. It was good. Since we didn't think we'd fit in a trip to Sandymount to think smutty thoughts, we thought we could do it there and then. In the good book, Bloom is fantasising about a girl he sees on the beach but is shocked when she stands up to leave, revealing that she is a cripple. So you can imagine our surprise when a man arrived to sit on the rocks and proceeded to take off his leg. What a co-inky-dink.

We got a DART back into town, where we popped into Trinity so Dorothea could return a book to the library. We sat on the green waiting for her, and also Claire (my friend from school who has been travelling the world), Stephen (a friend of mine from years ago who John still sees a lot [as an aside, it was his birthday, hence the name 'Stephen' and the middle name 'Stanislaus']) and John's friend Michio [sp?] and her friend Emily.

Suitably bolstered, our merry band proceeded to Davy Byrne's for a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy. Unsurprisingly, it was packed, so we got some nice bread in M&S and some nice gorgonzola in a cheese 'emporium' around the corner (the shopkeeper asked us if it was a literary tribute). We had our glass of burgundy in Davy Byrne's, then traipsed to St Stephen's Green to eat our bread and cheese. Not a Joycean destination, but there we are.

That was pretty much the end of our Joycean tribute. We didn't come across people doing readings, unfortunately, but I got the feeling that the day was somewhat subdued because so many scholars were rising and following Charlie's funeral cortege. Or perhaps not. I don't know, I don't have another Bloomsday to compare it to. We went to Kristen's new apartment for a little while, then I headed to Busaras (via Lush to get Mum some bath ballistics to get her through her last two weeks of work) to get a bus home.

Blistered feet, sunburn from sitting on the rocks by the sea, and aching limbs from waterskiing. But it was fun.