Join IrishCentral LIVE for an immersive Bloomsday celebration

June 16 marks Bloomsday, the day that celebrates James Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses. Join IrishCentral live from Origin Theatre Company's Bloomsday Breakfast at Bloom's Tavern in New York City. 

The annual free event -- New York’s only site-specific Bloomsday breakfast, featuring readings from “Ulysses,” musical interludes, and a juried costume contest -- unfolds at Bloom’s Tavern 208 East 58th Street, on Saturday June 16, starting at 11:30 am.

Can't make it in person? Fret not, IrishCentral will be streaming it live on Facebook from 11:30 am EST to 12:30 pm EST.

Produced by Origin Theatre Company, an honoree at the 2018 IrishCentral Creativity & Arts Awards, the breakfast has been a grand tradition since 2014. Bloomsday commemorates the Dublin summer morning chronicled in James Joyce’s landmark novel “Ulysses,” which takes place in a single day, June 16, 1904.

The event also features the announcement of the “Origin in Bloom” Literary Prize, honoring an Irish or Irish-American author with a unique connection to New York.

The beloved writer and activist Malachy McCourt won the inaugural “Origin in Bloom” Literary Prize last year.  The prize’s nominating committee includes the Irish Voice’s Cahir O’Doherty, Irish America Magazine’s Patricia Harty, and the Irish Echo’s Peter McDermott.

Among the notable performers, writers and musicians taking part are Elmore James; David O’Hara; Charlotte Moore; Sean Gormley; Ciarán Sheehan; Paula Nance; Terry Donnolly; Fiona Walsh; Patrick Fitzgerald and The James Joyce Reading Group, and David O’Leary of Trí -- The New Irish Tenors. The Irish-folk-rock troubadour Alan Gogarty on guitar is the event’s music director.

For the third year in a row, the breakfast features a costume competition for the “Best, or Most Creatively, Dressed Molly or Leopold Bloom.”  The winner -- either a man or woman -- will be selected from among the guests by a blue-ribbon panel of judges led by the internationally recognized image strategist Margaret Molloy.  A $1,000 Dinner and NYC Fun Package will be offered to the grand-prize winner. 

James Joyce first serialized “Ulysses” beginning in 1918. Considered a masterpiece of modernism, it was banned in the U.S. before the book was published in its entirety in France in 1922. Bloomsday observances around the world date back to 1924.

More info here, or tune in via IrishCentral's Facebook page.