Kilcullen connection to Ulysses celebrations

Some Joyce iconography and Susan Leybourne with PJ Murphy in Sweny's Pharmacy in Dublin.

Transition Year students from Cross and Passion College and Newbridge College are participating in a Ulysses 100 Project initiated by Calverstown woman Susan Leybourne, writes Brian Byrne.

One of the celebrations for the centenary of the publication of James Joyces most famous book, the Ulysses 100 Project will undertake a series of events in Paris next Wednesday to mark the occasion. The initiative will also publish an e-book with birthday tributes and Ulyssean anecdotes from people all over the world. It will be launched on social media at exactly 20:22 French time, at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris on 02 02 2022.

Amy Moran from CPC and Rebecca Andrée from Newbridge College, who both also live in Calverstown, are contacting Irish bookshops to ask them to display Ulysses in their shop windows or in the store itself. The pair have set up an Instagram account @ulyssesliterarylioness and are encouraging bookshops to send in photographs of their Ulysses displays. The 'literary lioness' of the account name refers to Sylvia Beach, the owner of the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris who published the book when no other publisher would take it.

The Ulysses 100 Project has also organised a birthday card competition in schools in Trieste, Zurich, Saint-Gérand-le-Puy and Dublin, which will be displayed in Shakespeare and Company. Irish bookshops are being encouraged to do something similar. On the day, the Ulysses 100 Project will have French actors appearing as literary figures with John Shevlin, the hatmaker who dresses as James Joyce for many events.

The Project was initiated when Susan Leybourne met another interested person, Joyce Good, at the American Club of Paris and they brainstormed the idea over a bar of Sweny's Pharmacy Soap and a miniature bottle of Writer's Tears whiskey. Susan then teamed up with Marion Byrne of L'Association James Joyce à Saint-Gérand-le-Puy, who is chief editor of the e-book.

The key event is the launch of the e-book which will include photos, videos, and letters coming from various Joycean fans and societies. "The first 1,000 copies of Ulysses sold out within a month," Susan says. "We want to see how quickly we can get 1,000 downloads and how many more within a month."

Other celebratory elements will include a 'Happy Birthday' sing-song in the Gare de Lyon in Paris at the public piano there. Birthday festivities will feature 'Sylvia Beach' and 'James Joyce' arriving at Shakespeare and Company, and a live link with Trieste and the Pasticceria Caffé Pirona where Joyce started writing Ulysses.

The whole story can be seen on Instagram @ulysses100project and contact can be made on the Facebook page. L'Association James Joyce à Saint-Gérand-le-Puy, the James Joyce Centre, Dublin, Shakespeare and Company, and the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris have given their support to the project.

Photographs use Policy — Privacy Policy