Josephine Craven’s Bloomsday Performance

The Women Who Haunt Us A Preview of Rattlin’ of the Joists 2025
By Josephine Craven
Every year on June 16th, readers and revelers around the world gather to celebrate Bloomsday — the day on which James Joyce’s epic novel Ulysses takes place.

The date commemorates the fictional wanderings of Leopold Bloom through the streets of Dublin in 1904, and has become an international celebration of Joyce’s work, Irish literature, and the power of language to illuminate the everyday.

Josephine Craven
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.

The show features a small ensemble of actors and singers, each bringing their voice to the women who haunt, inspire, and endure. I provide narration throughout — guiding the audience with introductions, context, and a few quiet reflections.
Rattlin’ of the Joists is not a recital of scholarship, nor a Joyce-for-purists affair. It is a
celebration: of language, of music, of the stories that linger long after the last line is read.
Join us on Bloomsday — Monday, June 16th – and step into the haunted, humming world of Joyce’s women.
Featuring: Brad Armacost, Kevin Cassidy, Josephine Craven, Brigid Duffy, Cynthia Judge, Maureen O’Shea, and Mark Piekarz—all generously donating their time and talent as a fundraiser for
the IAHC to further its cultural mission. June 16 – Time: 7pm Irish American Heritage Center,
4626 N Knox Ave, Chgo, IL 60630 Tickets: $10 in advance, $15 at door. visit www.irish-american.