One person worthy of special mention as the centenary of Bloomsday approaches is the late John Ryan, artist, editor and theatrical producer, writes Brendan Lynch.
It was he who organised the first Bloomsday commemoration in 1954 together with fellow writer Brian O'Nolan, better known as the Irish Times columnist Myles na Gopaleen or the novelist Flann O'Brien.
As well as editing the Dublin Magazine and launching the Envoy literary magazine (which published the first short stories by Brendan Behan and J.P. Donleavy), John co-edited with Myles na Gopaleen A Bash in the Tunnel, a book of tributes to James Joyce by Irish writers including Samuel Beckett. He also founded the Joyce Society, which bought the Martello tower in Sandycove where James Joyce had stayed with Oliver St John Gogarty in 1904. The tower was opened as the James Joyce Museum by Sylvia Beach, publisher of Ulysses, in 1962.
John Ryan had been studying art before he first read Ulysses, when he was bed-ridden with illness at the age of 17. "It was like starting my education all over again. I had discovered a rich and inexhaustible lode," he recalled not long before his death in May 1992.
In sharp contrast to the hype of 2004, secrecy was the order of the day for that first Bloomsday commemoration. "If word had got out, we would have been joined by countless hangers-on and freeloaders, of which there were so many in the fifties," John remembered.
"We hired two broughams which had seen better days and we were joined by Paddy Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Con Leventhal and a dentist named Tom Joyce, reputedly a cousin of the great man. The original plan was to traverse most of the places mentioned in Ulysses, from Sandymount Strand to Glasnevin cemetery, the National Library, Holles Street maternity hospital, Barney Kiernan's pub and, of course, Nighttown. And in memory of Joyce's colourful father, John, to toast the four corners of the metropolis from the top of Nelson's Pillar with Cork whiskey.
"Ironically, in his Irish Times column that very morning, Myles described Joyce as an illiterate for his misuse of foreign quotations. But it didn't inhibit him from celebrating the big day and by the time we gathered in Sandycove, it was obvious that he already had something stronger than tea for breakfast. He and Patrick Kavanagh started to climb the cliff-like ascent from architect Michael Scott's garden to the Martello tower. Displeased with Patrick's swifter progress, Myles suddenly grabbed him by the ankle and wouldn't let go.
"We eventually separated the pair and, after a warming stirrup-cup from Michael Scott, we proceeded to Blackrock. Tony Cronin helped restore some calm with beautiful renditions of songs that Joyce would have sung, such as Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms, and we reached a Blackrock hostelry in good order."
When the landlord saw the horse-drawn cabs and their neatly attired complement, he enquired if they were coming from a funeral. "Myles told him that it was a friend of ours by the name of Joyce, a writer, who had died. 'Not little Jimmy the signwriter from Newtown Park Avenue? Sure, wasn't he sitting where you are now only last Wednesday,' the landlord informed us."
The party retraced the footsteps of Stephen Dedalus on Sandymount Strand, and made an unscheduled stop at a bookie's shop. John recalled. "Unfortunately, we also delayed at several pubs that never featured in the great book and it was afternoon by the time we finally hove to in Duke Street, between The Bailey and Davy Byrne's. We hadn't stuck to our master plan but we had enjoyed a very good day, which I recorded for posterity on a colour film, while Patrick wrote that poem in which he so presciently forecast the Joyce industry."
John Ryan's family owned the Monument Creameries chain of restaurants and in 1956 he bought the Bailey pub and restaurant in Dublin's Duke Street. Here he entertained his Bloomsday companions for many years and also anchored the door of Bloom's fictitious home at Number 7 Eccles Street, which he had rescued from developers. Upstairs, he staged many dramatic productions, including Waiting for Godot, as well as producing Bloomsday, Alan McLelland's stage version of Ulysses. A capable yachtsman, John also sailed a boat to from Dublin to Ithaca to honour his two heroes, Homer and Joyce.
When he died in May, 1992, his funeral was attended by contemporaries and fellow writers such as J.P. Donleavy, Benedict Kiely, Ulick O'Connor and Anthony Cronin, John's former Bloomsday associate. Cronin read an excerpt from Ulysses, while John's own well-thumbed copy was buried with him in Glasnevin cemetery. His friend the sculptor Des MacNamara paid a final tribute: "Few persons did as much for Irish literature as John did in the lean fifties, when he provided hospitality and encouragement to many an aspiring artist and writer. He was a Renaissance man - and, as Myles na Gopaleen might have said, a Joycean before it was either profitable or popular."