Daniel Mulhall - Ulysses: A Readers Odyssey

DANIEL MULHALL was born in Waterford. He has spent more than forty years in the Irish diplomatic service, and is currently Irelands ambassador to the United States, having previously served as ambassador in Kuala Lumpur, Berlin and London. In 1998 he was part of the Irish Governments delegation at the negotiations that produced the Good Friday Agreement. Over the years, he has written and lectured extensively on Irish literature, including the writings of James Joyce. Throughout his diplomatic career, he has drawn on literature to help tell Irelands story internationally, and has worked tirelessly to increase the impact and reach of Irish writing around the world. He is President of the Yeats Society, Sligo. Married to Greta, they have two children, Tara and Jason.

ULYSSES: A READERS ODYSSEY

First published in 2022 by

New Island Books

Glenshesk House

10 Richview Office Park

Clonskeagh

Dublin D14 V8C4

Republic of Ireland

www.newisland.ie

Copyright Daniel Mulhall, 2022

The right of Daniel Mulhall to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000.

Print ISBN: 978-1-84840-829-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-84840-830-2

All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owners.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The images featured in this book are reproduced by kind permission of The Rosenbach library of Philadelphia, The University at Buffalo Libraries Special Collection, and The National Library of Ireland, respectively. The map of Dublin featured on the inner cover is a 1900 Ordnance Survey map Government of Ireland.

New Island received financial assitance from The Arts Council (An Chomhairle Ealaon), Dublin, Ireland.

New Island Books is a member of Publishing Ireland.

To my wonderful grandchildren,
Alice, Jessica, Liam and George

PROLOGUE

A DIPLOMATIC ODYSSEY

Representing Ireland with James Joyce as a travelling companion

in the east: early morning: set off at dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a days march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically. Walk along a strand, strange land, come to a city gate, sentry there [] Wander through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark caves of carpet shops [] Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read: in the track of the sun.

Leopold Bloom, imaginary world traveller,
from Ulysses, Episode 4, Calypso

Like Leopold Bloom (in his imagination), I set off at dawn one day (it was 10 March 1980, to be precise) headed for somewhere in the East, New Delhi in my case. While there, I often wandered through the awned streets of Old Delhi and other cities across the subcontinent, saw plenty of turbaned faces and even bought a carpet or two during the years I spent there.

My forty-year journey in the track of the sun means that I have indeed walked along strands in strange lands, for every land is strange to us in its own way, even our native shores. And yes, I have grown much older and not just technically, as in Blooms imaginative reckoning. When I set out on my journey as a diplomat, I had few possessions besides my clothes, vinyl records and a collection of books I had assembled during my student days; works on Irish literature, history and biography for the most part, reflecting my academic interests. The volumes I had shipped to join me in New Delhi included a copy of James Joyces Ulysses and, after the passage of four decades during which that volume has been one of my figurative travelling companions, and from which I have learned a great deal, I decided to write a book about that great book. As I look in my rear-view mirror, I realise that I have been in dialogue with Irish history and literature ever since my student days. The pages that follow are a product of that dialogue.

I am part of a fortunate generation of Irish people who benefited from sustained and substantial investment in education. As the first member of my family to go to university, I owe much to those in government from the 1960s onwards who chose to prioritise education as a means of enabling Ireland to fulfil its potential. During my lifetime, I have witnessed Irelands transformation as it progressed from being an outlier in western European terms to a fully developed country at the heart of the European Union. The national transformation that has occurred has not been purely economic. It has also led to a more open and tolerant society in whose present condition, albeit of course not a perfect one (and with no sense of complacency), I take genuine pride. And we have developed a more expansive attitude towards our culture, including a keener appreciation of James Joyce and his work, which is now a focal point for Dublins Museum of Literature Ireland, MoLI. As we approach the centenary of the publication of Ulysses, it is time to have another look at that great Irish, European, and indeed global, novel.

WHY ME?

My justification for undertaking this venture derives from the fact that I have spent four decades travelling the world with Irish literature as part of my diplomatic baggage, actual and intellectual. My copy of Ulysses, purchased in 1974, and my edition of Yeatss Collected Poems, acquired in January 1976, have both criss-crossed the globe with me. I have used those two books, and many others besides, in order to present Ireland to people of different backgrounds whose interest in my country often stems from an affinity with our literature and our history. I wrote this book during my time as Ambassador of Ireland to the United States, where part of my role is to tell the story of modern Ireland to Americans across that vast country. I also strive to connect with Irish America and to promote Irelands considerable economic interests in the USA. In the course of this assignment, and during earlier ones in Scotland, Malaysia, Germany and Britain, I have sought to use the lure of our literature as a resource for creating vital affinities with Ireland. Many people across the world who have no ancestral connection with us often engage with Ireland, initially at least, through our writers and their works.

James Joyces writing has been part of my life going back to my student days, and I have returned to it again and again throughout my decades of diplomatic service. His work, and that of other major Irish writers, has helped shape my thinking about the country I have been privileged to represent internationally for more than four decades now.