Bloomsday in Chicago: Rattlin’ of the Joists

Here in Chicago, we mark the day with our own tradition: Rattlin’ of the Joists — an annual celebration of James Joyce in word and song performed at the Irish American Heritage Center. A proud tradition started in 1999 by the late, great Frank Gleeson. This year’s theme is “The Women Who Haunt Us” — a journey through Joyce’s fiction guided by the women who inhabit his imagination: mothers, muses, lovers, daughters, and ghosts. While Ulysses and Portrait of the Artist are often read through the lens of Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, it is the women — sensual, ghostly, lyrical, and often unspeaking — who shape the lives and longings of his male characters.

We’ll meet Molly Bloom in her audacious monologue; Gerty MacDowell, dreaming by the sea; May Dedalus, whose ghost lingers in her son’s conscience; and Gretta Conroy, remembering a boy who once died for her love. Even Anna Livia Plurabelle, the mythic river-mother of Finnegans Wake, will whisper into the night. As always, music is essential. Joyce’s works are filled with musical references, and we
honor that tradition with live performances woven through the readings. You’ll hear “Love’s Old Sweet Song,” “Stor Mo Chroi,” “The Lass of Aughrim,” “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls,” and other traditional and art songs. that deepen the emotional landscape of the evening.