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Date Posted: 14:59:27 06/19/04 Sat GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: Dublin hosts monster fry-up to mark 'Bloomsday' (Washington Post)

washingtonpost.com

Dublin Hosts Monster Fry-Up to Mark 'Bloomsday'
Reuters
Sunday, June 13, 2004; 10:10 AM

By Kevin Smith

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Breakfast was without question the most important meal of the day in Dublin on Sunday as thousands flocked to the city's main thoroughfare for free fry-ups in honor of one of literature's most famous meals.

The cholesterol-fest on Dublin's historic O'Connell Street commemorated the meal enjoyed by Leopold Bloom, the hero of James Joyce's masterpiece "Ulysses," before he set off on his epic walk around the city on June 16, 1904.

For logistical reasons the organizers of the "ReJoyce Dublin 2004" festival decided to hold the big breakfast ahead of the "Bloomsday" centenary, which will be marked by further celebrations on Wednesday.

Thousands of Joyceans -- academics, writers and tourists -- are descending on Dublin to pay homage to a book which many consider to be the greatest novel in the English language and a landmark in Western art.

On Sunday 10,000 Joyce fans were mainly offered sausages, bacon, blood pudding and tomatoes crammed into large bread rolls -- rather tame compared to the diet of the offal-loving Bloom.

"Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls," Joyce wrote.

"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."

Nutrition expert Margot Brennan said Bloom's diet could have had serious implications for his health. "Good old Leopold would definitely have been an Irish Heart Foundation candidate by the time he was finished, I would think," she said.

Bloom kicked off his day enjoying "the toothsome pliant meat" of fried pork kidneys, which were also on offer on Sunday along with vegetarian alternatives. More than 50 cooks manned frying pans in makeshift canteens along the thoroughfare.

Stilt-walkers, fire-eaters and acrobats roamed the street, while barber-shop quartets serenaded the breakfasting public, many of whom had dressed up in Edwardian garb.

"We came over from England for the weekend and this is definitely the highlight," said tourist Veronica Miller.

"It's marvellous -- it gives a real sense of what Edwardian Dublin would have been like on a sunny summer morning."

But what would Joyce, who left his native city at the age of 20 and famously dismissed Dubliners as "the most hopeless and inconsistent race of charlatans I have ever come across," have made of the festivities?

"I think he would have been thrilled because he felt unrecognized for so long," said renowned Joyce scholar and member of the Irish senate David Norris, sporting full Edwardian costume complete with boater hat.

Dermod Lynskey, dressed as the writer in a black suit and hat and wearing trademark round-lensed Joycean spectacles, said he hoped the event would popularize Bloomsday.

"Until now the academics have made Joyce an elitist pursuit," he said.

Canadian visitor Keith Wilton confessed he had had trouble with Joyce's daunting prose: "I think I got to around page 60 and then gave up."

(Additional reporting by Gideon Long)
© 2004 Reuters

 

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