Latest Irish literature Podcast Episodes
Chemists rarely move.
Blooms & Barnacles - May 18, 2022 04:00 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsIs a bar of soap just a bar of soap? Topics in this episode include Leopold Bloom’s visit to Sweny’s Pharmacy, how often chemists move, Dublin geography, Bloom’s forgetfulness, the shrunken skull of Sweny the pharmacist, lotuses in the chemist’s, the philosopher’s stone, doing drugs, distilled ...
How long since your last mass?
Blooms & Barnacles - May 04, 2022 04:00 - 44 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsHave you repented for the sin of reading this filthy book yet? Topics in this episode include the Spanish Inquisition, English v. Latin, the Leonine prayers, the similarity between Catholic Mass and Columbo, Dermot’s priest voice, praying for the conversion of godless Communists, the difficulty...
One Old Booser Worse than Another
Blooms & Barnacles - April 21, 2022 11:50 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsWhy can’t we use Guinness instead of wine at Mass? Topics include Leopold Bloom’s thoughts on Communion wine, lots of lotuses, why wine must be used in the Mass instead of Guinness, temperance, transubstantiation, shew wine, cadging wine at Mass, Old Glynn, sacred music, Rossini’s Stabat Mater,...
Iron Nails Ran In
Blooms & Barnacles - January 21, 2022 03:49 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsGive us this day our daily Bloom. Topics in this episode include: mazzoth, shewbread, matzo v. Communion wafer, what it feels like to consume the body of Christ in the Eucharist, more cannibals, the hokey pokey and whether or not it mocks the Catholic Mass, Leopold Bloom use of popular culture ...
Eating Bits of a Corpse (w/ Russell Raphael)
Blooms & Barnacles - January 05, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsIs the Eucharist tantamount to cannibalism? Let’s ask Thomas Aquinas. Topics in this episode include: Fr. Conmee, Martin Cunningham, why Molly wasn’t admitted to the choir, bluey specs, Jesuit rock stars, Bloom’s skepticism of priests, a story from James Joyce’s 50th birthday party, the Euchari...
The Buddha in the Museum
Blooms & Barnacles - December 22, 2021 20:58 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsWhat did James Joyce think of Buddhism? Topics in this episode include: All Hallows or St. Andrew’s Church?, why Bloom hangs out in a church, the very reverend John Conmee S.J., sectarian scorekeeping, prayers for Gladstone, St. Peter Claver, the Opium Wars, racist poetry, the reclining Buddha ...
No rose without thorns.
Blooms & Barnacles - December 11, 2021 23:27 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsDid James Joyce once covertly suggest a new Guinness slogan? Topics in this episode include Mary Lost the Pin of her Drawers, flat Dublin voices, the Coombe, Bloom’s preoccupation with correct pronoun-antecedent agreement, Jesus in the house of Martha and Mary, a famlus forgery, Ashtown and the...
The Language of Flowers
Blooms & Barnacles - November 19, 2021 21:16 - 57 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratings“Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your cactus if you don’t please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dear roses when we soon anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha’s perfume.” Kelly and Dermot untangle the mysterious language of flowers. Topics include James Joyce’s a...
Martha
Blooms & Barnacles - November 04, 2021 02:49 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsHenry dear, do not deny my request before my patience are exhausted. In this episode, Kelly and Dermot try to figure out who Martha, Leopold Bloom’s saucy penpal, could really be. Topics include Dermot’s interest in Islam, Bloom’s missing hour, Leah the Forsaken, jugginses and guttapercha, cast...
An Abode of Bliss
Blooms & Barnacles - October 25, 2021 18:33 - 53 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsThe Blooms’ household is anything but an abode of bliss. In this episode, topics include: Plumtree’s Potted Meat, Joyce’s love for advertising, the narcotic effect of adspeak, why Plumtree’s Potted Meat is the perfect metaphor for a modern Odysseus, M’Coy’s various scams, Boylan’s metaphoricall...
M'Coy. Get rid of him quickly.
Blooms & Barnacles - October 07, 2021 02:31 - 50 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsLeopold Bloom braves an awkward stop-and-chat. Topics in this episode include: Leopold Bloom’s encounter with M’Coy, what Bloom has in common with Larry David, M’Coy as a character in “Grace”, M’Coy as an early prototype for Bloom, a quincunx, Bloom wrestles with his Shadow, Bloom trying to cat...
Henry Flower, Esq
Blooms & Barnacles - September 23, 2021 02:59 - 55 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsMr. Bloom runs a mysterious errand at the Westland Row Post Office. Topics include hidden lotuses, Corny Kelleher, Leopold Bloom’s missing hour, tooraloom tooraloom tay, Orientalism and Bloom’s fantasy of the Far East, stereotypes about climate’s affects the character of a culture, Tom Kernan, ...
The Lotus Eaters
Blooms & Barnacles - September 08, 2021 12:00 - 35 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsWe begin our foray into the languorous “Lotus Eaters” episode. Topics in this episode include how Kelly is like the Terminator, Odysseus and his crew’s misadventure with the Lotus Eaters in The Odyssey, why forgetfulness is evil in Odysseus’ view, some peculiar tales from Westland Row, cultivat...
Irish Orientalism
Blooms & Barnacles - August 25, 2021 12:00 - 57 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsWe explore Leopold Bloom’s connection to the ancient Phoenicians. Topic covered in this episode include: social hierarchies in Ireland, Dubliners v. culchies, Leopold Bloom’s fascination with the Orient, how imperial British culture informs Bloom’s worldview, whether or not some people in Irish...
Titbits
Blooms & Barnacles - August 11, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsDoes Leopold Bloom seem a bit anal retentive to you? Content Warning: We talk an awful lot about poo in this one. If that’s not your cup of tea, use your own discretion. In this episode, Dermot and Kelly finish Ulysses’ fourth episode - “Calypso.” Topics include Ezra Pound’s sense of propri...
Dearest Papli
Blooms & Barnacles - July 28, 2021 12:00 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsIs a picnic really just picnic? In this episode, Dermot and Kelly discuss Milly’s letter from Mullingar, those lovely seaside girls, Milly’s purpose in the narrative of Ulysses, the implication of a picnic, whether or not Milly is a poor substitute for Rudy, the significance of Milly’s fifteent...
Agendath Netaim
Blooms & Barnacles - July 14, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsLeopold Bloom contemplates the purchase of immense melonfields north of Jaffa. Topics covered in this episode include the Zionist movement of the early 20th century, how to pronounce Agendath Netaim, why Joyce might have changed Agudat to Agendath, hypostasis, the business sense (or nonsense) o...
Bloomsday 2021
Blooms & Barnacles - June 16, 2021 12:00 - 3 hours ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsHappy Bloomsday, one and all! Enjoy a selection of readings from Ulysses by our talented listeners from across the globe. It’s a Bloomsday bash you can listen to anywhere. Just add gorgonzola and burgundy! Cool stuff to support: Sweny's Patreon helps keep this marvelous Dublin landmark alive....
Met Him Pike Hoses
Blooms & Barnacles - June 03, 2021 01:38 - 57 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsWe do our best to take Molly’s advice and tell it in plain words - what is metempsychosis? Topics covered in this episode include Boylan’s bold hand, whether or not cats are kosher, moustache cups, secret letters, “La Ci Darem La Mano”, an orangekeyed chamberpot, how Molly can be both Calypso a...
The Orientalism Show
Blooms & Barnacles - May 19, 2021 12:00 - 51 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsWhy is Leopold Bloom so captivated by the “mysterious East”? In this episode we discuss the Orientalist motif in Ulysses, with a focus on “Calypso.” Topics include what is Orientalism?, how Orientalism manifests in Irish culture, the blurred continuum between Irish and British culture, Edward S...
The Ferreteyed Porkbutcher
Blooms & Barnacles - May 05, 2021 21:14 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsThis gland is your gland; this gland is my gland. Bloom finally makes it to the butcher to buy his kidney! In this episode, we discuss the geography (or joggerfry) of Bloom’s neighborhood, Larry O’Rourke’s, Bloom’s idea to build a tramline from the quays to the cattle market, bartenders who bec...
Potato I have.
Blooms & Barnacles - April 21, 2021 12:00 - 50 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsThis week, we’re talkin’ ‘bout ‘tatoes! Kelly and Dermot unpack the deeper symbolism behind Leopold Bloom’s idiosyncratic hobby of carrying a potato upon his person. Topics include Tayto crisps, Stephen and Bloom’s parallel lost keys, Bloom’s potato as a protective object, why the potato may ac...
Old Tweedy's Big Moustaches
Blooms & Barnacles - April 08, 2021 22:20 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsWho was Molly Bloom’s father, Major Brian Cooper Tweedy? Far more than meets the eye. Topics in this episode include Michael Caine and Zulu, what the heck a footleaf is and other lovely minutiae, the origin of the Blooms’ jingly-jangly bed, Major Brian Cooper Tweedy and his military career, Mol...
7 Eccles St.
Blooms & Barnacles - March 24, 2021 12:00 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsOrgan meats: the breakfast of champions. In this episode, we cover the opening pages of Ulysses’ fourth episode, “Calypso.” Topics include who eats organ meats, how Bloom’s thoughts are different from Stephen’s thoughts, the humbleness of “Calypso,” what mundane actions tell us about a characte...
Calypso
Blooms & Barnacles - March 10, 2021 13:00 - 52 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsThis week we cover the parallels to “Calypso,” the fourth episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses and Book V of Homer’s Odyssey. Topics include how Leopold Bloom and Odysseus are similar, how they’re different since Bloom is really a sideways Odysseus, Bloom as a feminine man, the danger of nostalgia, ...
Altman the Saltman (w/ Vincent Altman O'Connor)
Blooms & Barnacles - February 24, 2021 13:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsIn our last episode, we discussed people from James Joyce’s life who influenced the creation of Leopold Bloom. However, we left one question unanswered - why were none of these men from Dublin? Didn’t Joyce know any Jewish people in Dublin? Vincent Altman O’Connor’s research into this very quest...
Who Was the Real Leopold Bloom?
Blooms & Barnacles - February 10, 2021 23:16 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsJames Joyce based many characters in Ulysses on friends, family, acquaintances, and enemies, but what about Leopold Bloom? Who were the real people in Joyce’s life who inspired the creation of one of literature’s greatest protagonists? Topics in this episode include people who Joyce thought loo...
The Holy Office
Blooms & Barnacles - January 27, 2021 13:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsThey both lived in a Martello Tower, sure, but what else do James Joyce and Bono have in common? We take a short break from analyzing Ulysses to take a look at one of Joyce’s early poems - “The Holy Office.” If you love 100+ year old gossip, strap in! This one gets dishy. Topics include the sig...
Rere Regardant
Blooms & Barnacles - January 13, 2021 13:00 - 58 minutes ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsThis episode’s passage comes from p. 50-51 in my edition of Ulysses (1990 Vintage International), and covers the passage beginning “Come. I thirst.” and ending “…a silent ship.” We did it!!! We finally finished “Proteus”! We’re covering the last page of Ulysses’ third episode this week. Topi...
Barnacle Goose and Featherbed Mountain
Blooms & Barnacles - December 30, 2020 13:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsHow exactly does God become a featherbed mountain? What the heck is a featherbed mountain? We answer these questions and more in this episode of Blooms & Barnacles! Topics covered in this episode include Dermot’s hot take on Richard Dawkins, Renaissance magic, theosophy, metempsychosis, Dublin ...
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