Dublin’s Novel Experience Becomes a Tradition

O’Connell Street (formerly Sackville Street), Dublin’s premier boulevard, now heavily occupied by fast-food restaurants ... Elvery’s Elephant House, now Kentucky Fried Chicken ... --”The Ulysses Guide” Primed for the worst, I saw a favorable omen in her business card: “Mrs. Nora O’Rourke, Guest House Prop.” Nora, of course, was also the name of James Joyce’s beloved wife.

It was June 15, the eve of Bloomsday, the day on which James Joyce’s “Ulysses” takes place, and I had just arrived to participate in what has become an annual homage to one of the century’s literary masterpieces.

The 600-page novel is set entirely on June 16, 1904, from 8 a.m. until 2 a.m. the next morning, and I had the notion of traipsing after other literary tourists, guidebook in hand, and following in the footsteps of Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, Buck Mulligan and the other characters who populate “Ulysses.”

To be sure, Dublin had changed over the years, as indicated by Robert Nicholson’s excellent “Ulysses Guide,” a literary tourbook. Not only Kentucky Fried Chicken but McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizzaland, Dunkin Donuts, Wonder Burger, Mr. Burger and 7-Eleven, among others, dotted the city’s landscape. But had these invaders also transformed the city’s quirky character?

Early indications were not reassuring: Youngsters in surfer gear were skateboarding down O’Connell Street. One had to have faith that Joyce’s classic had captured forever the Dublin of 1904 and would, somehow, survive today’s fads and absurdities. After all, I reassured myself, why should American academics expect Dublin to preserve itself simply for their silly tours?

My idea, original or otherwise, was to join these American (and British, German and even Irish) devotees as they made their rounds and paid their literary respects. Bloomsday has become something of a tradition in Dublin, according to Ireland’s tourist authority, attracting some 500 visitors to the capital. (Also traditional, say Irish skeptics, is to come without actually having read Joyce’s difficult book.)

I was foiled in my plans of staying at Blooms Hotel (fully booked) and regretfully declined lodging at the Gresham, reminding myself of the hotel namesake’s famous maxim that bad money ($186 a night) drives out good.

Borrowing a travel guide from a student, I reserved a room at a small bed and breakfast--Leitrim House, 34 Blessington St., and thus met Mrs. O’Rourke. At $13.50 a night, breakfast included, it proved an economic--and literary--coup. Just a block or so away, on Eccles Street, was the home of Leopold and Molly Bloom.

As a journalist, I suspect that Joyce’s “Ulysses” exerts such an enormous appeal at least partly due to the inspired use he made of the news (and newspapers) of June 16, 1904. The book (and papers) then were full of speculation about that fateful day’s race for the Ascot Gold Cup. Last year on Bloomsday, the newspapers were similarly preoccupied with sports--but with Ireland’s prospects in the soccer World Cup in Italy.

Perusing the papers at 8 a.m. on Bloomsday, I was the first guest tucking into Mrs. O’Rourke’s excellent breakfast--corn flakes, fried egg and bacon, tea--and was gone before other tourists had even stirred. Even so, I was off to a late start for the Martello Tower on the outskirts of Dublin, the setting for the book’s opening scene and a magnet for Joyceans.

Taking a train to the tower in the Dublin suburb of Sandy Cove, I read in the day’s Irish Times that true Joyceans scoffed at the many visitors who flocked to such literary sideshows as organized walking tours, Edwardian balls, $40-a-ticket garden parties and Bloomsday breakfasts of nutty gizzards and pork kidneys.

“At the tower, Joyceans will politely avoid any Americans attempting to invoke the spirit of James Joyce,” the paper noted.

Thus warned, I disembarked at Sandy Cove after the 30-minute ride and was immediately confronted by a woman who, in a foreign accent, asked directions to the “celebrations.” Gambling that she wouldn’t try to invoke Joyce’s spirit, I suggested we stroll to the tower along the seafront. My companion turned out to be Russian, a Joyce devotee who had traveled from Moscow to Dublin specifically for what she expected to be precisely organized annual festivities.

Heavy organization, however, runs counter to the Irish (and Joycean) spirit. At the Martello Tower, once a fort and now a fascinating Joyce museum, we listened to an actor read from “Ulysses” as we gazed out at Joyce’s “snotgreen sea,” now speckled with a weekend sailboat regatta. Nicholson, the Tower’s curator as well as the “Ulysses Guide’s” author, says that real Bloomsday celebrants ignore the myth that they must adhere to a strict schedule of events or processions and, rather, follow whatever whimsical or disorganized trails beckon from “Ulysses” or today’s Dublin.

One pioneer group of native Joyce worshipers years ago set a standard for such spontaneous celebrations, visiting countless pubs in what became known as a pilgrimace --a cross between a pilgrimage and a disgrace. Now tourists can pay $40 or so for an organized literary pubcrawl.

The Joyce scholarship crowd lately has been locked in bitter battle over which published version of “Ulysses” best conforms to the master’s vision (the book was first published in 1922), but my Russian acquaintance wouldn’t be drawn into the dispute. Tanya had read “Ulysses” in a Russian translation, and, if some nuances were lost, she’d been sufficiently hooked into pursuing her own odyssey to Ireland.

On our return to Dublin from Sandy Cove, we weren’t able to squeeze into Davy Byrne’s crowded pub on Duke Street, where Joyce aficionados traditionally partake of Bloom’s lunch--Gorgonzola cheese and Burgundy. So we went across the street to The Bailey, a pub whose literary claim includes a wall sporting the actual front door of 7 Eccles St., the house (now demolished) that had served as Joyce’s model for Leopold and Molly Bloom’s home.

During lunch--half a dozen succulent oysters and a pint of Guinness ($3.75)--a scene unfolded almost out of the pages of “Ulysses.” An eccentrically clad character, a hammer and sickle emblazoned on the back of his jacket, strode into the pub and without apparent cause began berating a well-dressed, obviously foreign couple sitting quietly in a corner. When the woman gestured in annoyance, the stranger spat at her and stalked out.

Fifteen minutes later, he returned and resumed his tirade, this time in French. (The foreigners were German.) Finally, after hurling a few more insults, the mysterious stranger skulked off.

Meanwhile, noises outside The Bailey almost matched the din inside, and we bestirred ourselves to find a troupe of six black-suited figures vigorously declaiming passages from “Ulysses.” Following the actors, we trooped merrily to the National Library on nearby Kildare Street, then marched to the River Liffey for several more scenes before finally concluding with a reading at the Ormond Hotel, where a 90-minute Joyce Cabaret was to be held later.

At this point, I said dos veedanya to my Russian friend and followed my own Joycean muse. Where did this lead? To a bookstore on the Liffey, where two clerks were poring over the racing form. To the historic O’Connell Street post office, where Hare Krishna followers were chanting and where the Unification Church was staging a “Seven Day Fast for Eastern Europe.”

Then, across O’Connell and past the Gresham, continuing by the former family home of Oliver St. John Gogarty, on whom Joyce based Buck Mulligan. Past a pub called the James Joyce Lounge (“Big Video Screen Inside”), just around the corner from what had been Bloom’s home, now the site of a hospital wing.

Wandering farther on my Joycean journey, I followed Bloom and popped into Sweny’s pharmacy on Lincoln Place. As Joyce noted, “Chemists rarely move.” Like Bloom, and many literary tourists, I bought a small lemon soap at the pharmacy. “You just missed the American TV people filming here,” said the woman behind the counter.

That an impoverished expatriate writer is now such a focus for Irish commerce and tourism might have bemused the author. On North Earl Street, for example, a life-size statue of Joyce was unveiled on this Bloomsday, steps away from a department store window boasting oversized covers of his books.

The Irish tourist office distributes a four-page handwritten list of events that begin in the week preceding Bloomsday and conclude with post-Bloomsday breakfasts, brunches and tours devoted to Joyce’s even more impenetrable book, “Finnegans Wake.”

Having heeded my Irish advisers, I had rejected the academic approach to Bloomsday and instead conducted a conscientious in-depth investigation of the city’s pubs. While I did not gain any specific new insights into “Ulysses,” I can reveal, however, that though the city’s facade might have changed, Joyce’s Dublin retains its peculiar vitality and spirit, though I’m a bit vague about the details.

GUIDEBOOK

Dublin

Getting there: There are no direct flights from Los Angeles to Dublin, though Aer Lingus expects to initiate service next spring. Aer Lingus flies to Dublin via New York, with a stop in Shannon. Delta gets there via Atlanta, and British Airways via London. Advance-purchase fares range from $1,098 to $1,322 round trip.

Where to stay: Berkeley Court (Landsdowne Road, $245 per night, double); Westbury (Grafton Street, $228); Shelbourne (27 St. Stephen’s Green, $220); Blooms (Anglesea Street, $186); Gresham (O’Connell Street, $186); Mont Clare (Merrion Square, $160); Buswells (25-26 Molesworth St., $82) and Russell Court (21-23 Harcourt St., $80). Many hotels also provide considerable discounts. Guest houses include Ariel (52 Landsdowne Road, $58); Kilronan House (70 Adelaide Road, $60); The Fitzwilliam, 41 Fitzwilliam St., $57), and Georgian House (20-21 Lower Baggot St., $70).

Food and drink: Dublin is renowned for pubs such as Davy Byrne’s and The Bailey, on Duke Street near Grafton. The Guinness brewery in Dublin offers tours and tastings. Dublin restaurants such as Le Coq Hardi (35 Pembroke Road), Patrick Guilbaud (46 St. James Place) and Whites on The Green (119 St. Stephen’s Green) offer lunch menus for about $30, while Ernie’s (Mulberry Gardens, Downybrook, $25 for lunch) also features Irish art collections.

A few tips: The Irish tourist office at Dublin Airport can help with last-minute hotel or B&B; reservations. Tours, tips, maps and friendly advice (plus foreign currency exchange) are also provided at official Irish tourist offices at 14 Upper O’Connell St. and Baggot Street Bridge.

For more information: Contact the Irish Tourist Board, 757 3rd Ave., 19th Floor, New York 10017, (212) 418-0800.