Remarks at the launch of Bloomsday 2012
Phoenix Park, 16th June 2012
Ladies and Gentlemen
Thank you all very much for that very warm welcome. I am delighted to be with you this morning as we begin a very important day not only in the Dublin literary calendar but a day that is celebrated internationally as the day that was the source of the work that changed the world of literature.
I should first like to express my thanks to Senator David Norris for his very fine introduction, to Deirdre Ellis-King and the members of the James Joyce Centre’s Board of Directors, to Mark Traynor, Manager of the Centre, and to Stacey Herbert, Bloomsday Festival Coordinator for inviting me, to launch this most auspicious Dublin day. Gratitude is also due to Minister Jimmy Deenihan and his Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht for their continued support and likewise to the Lord Mayor and Dublin City Council.
Cuireann sé ríméad croí orm a bheith i láthair anseo inniu ag ceann de na hócáidí is mo i leith chultúir i mBaile Átha Cliath. Tagann daoine ó chian ‘s ó chóngar go dtí an áit seo mar gheall ar an ceangal atá ann le ceann de na scríbhneoirí is fearr a tháinig as Éirinn – James Joyce. Dar ndóigh tá cathair Bhaile Átha Cliath ag croílár an domhain liteartha le fada an lá. Bhí réamhtheachtaithe liteartha eile ann ó Éirinn – leithéidí Swift, Sterne, Wilde, Yeats, agus Ó Conaire. Lean Joyce an traidisiún liteartha seo ach dhírigh sé isteach ar shaol Bhaile Átha Cliath le linn a ré féin.
It is more than pleasing to be here today in one of the best-loved cultural landmarks in Dublin, visited by people from around the globe for its connection to one of the greatest ever writers this country has ever produced, James Joyce. Dublin has, of course, long been a camposanto for literary pilgrims. Following in the footsteps of Swift, Sterne, Wilde, Yeats, and Ó Conaire—to name but a few of Ireland’s illuminati—Joyce took up the torch and shone it, casting an often somber realist and rarely romantic light upon the Dublin of his own day.
Although it was written at the commencement of the last century, Ulysses is a novel that resounds, in many ways, with a particular significance for early 21st century Ireland, a country going through seismic change and not a little upheaval.
Ulysses was a brave departure from the form of the novel as it prevailed in Joyce’s time, a groundbreaking piece of work and part of a Modernism that would introduce a new style of narration to the novel. No longer would we have the traditional all-seeing, dependable narrator of old style fiction who would tell us all we needed to know, requiring little thought or input from us, the reader.
Instead we would now be forced into a position where we must question the happenings of the mind, and ponder the personal projection of the storyteller onto the events unfolding throughout the novel.
We could no longer implicitly and unthinkingly trust the narrator but must look beyond the words on the page, taking as significant what had been omitted, what had been left unsaid, searching for moments of significance buried deeply within the well-layered narrative and recognizing too the quiet epiphanies that are the gemstones of such a work of genius. There is no doubt that Ulysses has acquired the reputation of being one of the foremost pieces of work in the then recently emerged ‘stream of consciousness’ made where the reader must seek to translate as well as to be entertained, must be an active participator in the process as opposed to a passive onlooker.
Ulysses seems to me to be the antithesis of that notion of culture exemplified by Lionel Trilling where one wants to be judged by the success of one’s inhibitions. Ulysses allows the sensory imagination to run free and envisage an unrestrained, unrealized, perhaps unrealizable humanity.
We in this country are now in a time, and at a stage, where we need a new discourse; a new citizenship that must be an active and participative one. When I was inaugurated as President I stressed the importance of achieving an inclusive citizenship, where every citizen participates and is treated with respect.
As we move forward and craft a re-imagined Ireland, based on the needs, aspirations, imagination and genius of all our people in their different ways, we must ensure that the views of all sections of society are given a voice. We must also, as individuals, ensure that we actively involve ourselves in our communities and in our society, that we use our voice and contribute our energies and skills as we open a new chapter, a new creative form, based on a different version of our Irishness; a version that will involve both the ethics of memory and the courage of imagination. As James Joyce himself once said: “I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.”
Of course, change is not always easily won. It requires courage, persistence and great determination. As well as being one of this country’s most famous literary figures, James Joyce was also one of our most famous exiles. He foresaw that the writing he wished to do would be difficult in Ireland and so he left this country and became a man apart. It is probably this experience of the distance of exile which drove his wonderful depiction of Leopold Bloom as a perennial outsider, another man apart. Edward Raphael Lipsett, a Jew residing in Dublin once wrote “You cannot get one native to remember that a Jew may be an Irishman.” And Leopold Bloom, as he walked around his native Dublin, remained engaged in an ongoing search for a sense of his own identity and nationality.