What is Bloomsday?

Bloomsday is the day readers around the world celebrate with Dubliners one of the great novels of the twentieth century, James Joyce's 'Ulysses', set in 1904, and published in 1922. The novel is witty, bizarre, surreal, learned and humane, and it gives us Dublin and its citizens in all their gritty reality, and their wry and romantic responsiveness to music.

The novel explores the intimate lives of ordinary Dubliners: the young poet Stephen who sings Elizabethan love-lyrics while mentally reviling women; Bloom, temporarily displaced and cuckolded, by his wife Molly's concert manager, Blazes Boylan, but who nonetheless worries that she might need tuition in Italian to make the most of the duet from Don Giovanni she sings with his rival; bed-loving Molly's mind is supersaturated with the music of Spain, nostalgic lovesongs, and hymns to Mary. Boylan, is built for vaudeville, while others traverse the stage-Irish repertoire and rebel songs of nationalist Ireland.

'Ulysses' is an urban novel, set in a city which sits athwart a bay and a river, as does Melbourne. Bloomsday in Melbourne relishes the grandeur which was Melbourne at the turn of the century. Events are located in different parts of Melbourne each year and attempts are made to connect place and events in Joyce's novel.

Who Runs Bloomsday?

Bloomsday in Melbourne is a not-for-profit organisation run by a committee of volunteers established as an incorporated society. The members are

Committee & Writers 2010

Director
Frances Devlin-Glass

Secretary/Publicist
Sian Cartwright

Treasurer
Bob Glass

Committee
Deirdre Gillespie
Roslyn Hames
Roisin Kan

Writers
The Committe, Graeme Anderson and Brenda Addie

Frances Devlin-Glass conducted a study in 2003–4 of you, the patrons of Bloomsday in Melbourne. You can find out more here .

Our Sponsors

Bloomsday in Melbourne is largely self-funded from subscriptions to Bloomsday events, and through two fundraisers annually.

In 2009, we are proud to be sponsored by no less than five institutions:

	Our major sponsor since 1997 has been the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University.
	The Irish Government through the Irish Embassy in Canberra has sponsored us since 2006.
	In 2009, we are proudly sponsored by Melbourne City Council, Living the Arts program.
	The Celtic Club has been a longstanding sponsor, and sometimes host of Bloomsday events, as it will be in 2009. It is generous in providing a rehearsal space to Bloomsday in Melbourne.
	The State Library of Victoria has frequently hosted Bloomsday, indeed on 5 occasions. 2009 will be the 6th. We are proud to be affiliated with them, and can claim a modest part in Melbourne’s successful bid to become a United Nations City of Literature. The secretariat for this will be housed at the State Library.