I see that Bloomsday has become the latest example of event inflation: the socio-economic phenomenon whereby Irish feast days and festivals keep multiplying in length.
Figures just released for the second quarter of 2007 suggest that this year's instalment will come in at more than a week long, a new record. While the focal point remains June 16th, the celebrations inspired by Joyce's Ulysses started last Saturday and are scheduled to continue until Sunday 17th. That's a whopping 900 per cent increase on the period prescribed by the author himself.
Not that Joyce could talk. Apart from the idea of setting his epic novel around the happenings of one 24-hour period, he was not much given to minimalism. Indeed, as my esteemed colleague Terence Killeen will remind people in a talk at the Joyce Centre next Sunday, Ulysses was originally intended to be part of the short story collection Dubliners. I look forward to hearing how the plan went so badly wrong.
In duration, if not in the numbers participating, Bloomsday 2007 has now outstripped even St Patrick's Day, which until recently was the most dramatic example of the expansionist pressures caused by economic prosperity.
It's not so long ago, you may recall, that we could barely bring ourselves to celebrate March 17th alone, never mind the week around it. The idea was rather foisted upon us by our diaspora, which used to be a lot more enthusiastic about the concept of being Irish than those of us forced to live here. Then the boom happened - and with it a five-fold increase in the duration of St Patrick's Day, which this year ran from March 15th to 19th, at least in Dublin.
Some examples of event inflation are much harder on the pocket than others. The Galway Races is probably the most notorious case, having expanded to an exorbitant seven days in recent times. This can be ruinous for racing enthusiasts - especially culture-loving racing enthusiasts who may already have lost their shirts on the arts festival that immediately precedes it in the western capital's month-long saturnalia.
For some of those who attend, the sound-track of the modern-day Galway Races is the old Dubliners hit Seven Drunken Nights. Except, of course, that, unlike the Galway Races, the Dubliners' song had the decency to stop on Friday.
It did in the recorded version, anyway. When it made the UK's top 10 in 1967, many British listeners must have been mystified as to why Ronnie Drew described only five nights, rather than the seven billed in the title. Such restraint, enforced by the combined requirements of taste and the three-minute format, would be unthinkable now.
Even today, a few Irish festivals still buck the inflationary trend. It's a small mercy for the livers of those who go there that Killorglin's Puck Fair remains capped at the original 72 hours. Stretching back centuries, it has been held every year from August 10th to 12th, and the ancient format of "Gathering Day", "Fair Day", and "Scattering Day" has a perfect symmetry that discourages tinkering. Even so, it can only be a matter of time before some marketing genius suggests expanding the format.
Bloomsday is hardly comparable to most Irish festivals, I know. The event is still too cerebral to attract major sponsorship from any of the drinks companies, for one thing. You would have to attend at least three readings to be at any risk of a hangover the morning afterwards. And the nearest thing to a mass gathering in the week's schedule is Thursday's open-air screening of The Dead in Temple Bar.
But Bloomsday's growth is definitely part of a wider trend. Festivals are not just increasing in duration, but in number too. Day-long events are turning into weekends, weekends are turning into weeks, and the few gaps left in the calendar are being filled by new excuses to celebrate. Soon the country will be engaging in revelry all year round. There will be no down-time at all anymore.
That's why I'm calling for a 24-hour period to be set aside every year on which no festivals would be held. It would be a day free of fêtes, féiles, garden parties, rock festivals, raves, Roses of Tralee, summer schools, wreath-laying ceremonies, or commemorative events of any kind. Even wine and cheese receptions could be banned. If the day proved successful, maybe in due course we could expand it to a week.
fmcnally@irish-times.ie