At Home and Abroad

Forty percent of Québecers have some Irish ancestry. Honouring the history of Irish immigration to Montréal, the festival celebrates Irish Montréal, its culture and literature. Year after year, the Bloomsday Montréal Festival boosts local pride and community spirit, and raises awareness of the diversity and dynamism of culture and identity within our community. The exploration of a hard-won place for immigrants in the new Canadian culture threads through each year’s program. Talented artists and musicians, music, walking tours, films,documentaries, lectures and readings from Irish literature – especially Joyce’s Ulysses — show us how it really was and how Irish heritage shaped the city we know today. In this way, even as part of a larger international celebration, our Bloomsday is a uniquely Montréal event. The first Bloomsday Montréal Festival was a three-day event held in June 2012. Administered by the McGill School for Continuing Studies, many key Montréal educational and cultural institutions participated in its first success.