James Joyce's Ulysses was published in 1922 and is considered to be one of the most important books of the 20th century. The narrative follows the journey of two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, as they criss-cross Dublin on 16 June 1904. Dublin takes centre stage in the book and the soul of the city is captured in all its gritty glory. The narrative parallels Homer's Odyssey, with one notable difference, Guinness. The two boys travel across the city in what is basically a marathon pub crawl. Every year a bunch of Joycean enthusiasts re-enact this epic pub crawl. It's dressed up as literary event, don't let that fool you, its drink broken up by a bit of walking. The event is known as Bloomsday. 2004 was the 100th birthday of the event, and there were lots of events organised that appealed to the high and low brow alike. We think that the Catholic Church would have beatified Leopold Bloom if he really existed and wasn't Jewish. We decided to name the liveliest and loveliest hotel in Temple Bar after the great literary character - Blooms Hotel. Blooms of Dublin is a musical play or operetta in two acts with music and text by Anthony Burgess. The work, nearly three hours long, was first performed (in a concert version) for the Dublin Joyce Centenary in 1982 by the RTE Singers and RTE Concert Orchestra and broadcast on BBC and RTE radio. It was produced by John Tydeman and Michael Heffernan. The operetta is based on James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses. It was published in book form in 1986. The texts of some of the songs also appear in the novels Earthly Powers (1980) and The End of World News (1982)
