Quiz of the Day
James Joyce & Ireland
Tuesday, 16 June 2026
Bloomsday — Irish literature, Dublin, literary landmarks
1. Bloomsday celebrates which James Joyce novel?
- Ulysses
- Dubliners
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- Finnegans Wake
Bloomsday falls on June 16 because that is the date on which the entire action of Ulysses takes place in 1904. It is also the date Joyce had his first outing with his future wife, Nora Barnacle.
2. What is the name of the protagonist of Ulysses?
- Leopold Bloom
- Stephen Dedalus
- Simon Dedalus
- Buck Mulligan
Leopold Bloom is a Jewish-Irish advertising canvasser. Joyce modelled aspects of him on a real Dubliner named Alfred H. Hunter, who once helped Joyce after he was knocked down in a street altercation.
3. In which city is Ulysses primarily set?
- Cork
- Galway
- Belfast
- Dublin
Joyce boasted that if Dublin were destroyed it could be rebuilt from the pages of Ulysses. The novel mentions over 300 real Dublin addresses, pubs, shops, and landmarks.
4. Which ancient epic poem is Ulysses loosely modelled on?
- The Iliad
- Beowulf
- The Odyssey
- The Aeneid
Each of the 18 episodes of Ulysses corresponds to an episode in Homer's Odyssey. Leopold Bloom parallels Odysseus, Molly Bloom parallels Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus parallels Telemachus.
5. What was the first country to publish the complete text of Ulysses?
- United Kingdom
- Ireland
- United States
- France
Ulysses was first published in full by Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris on February 2, 1922 — Joyce's 40th birthday. It was banned in the US and UK for obscenity for over a decade.
6. Which Joyce short story collection opens with the famous line 'There was no hope for him this time'?
- Chamber Music
- Pomes Penyeach
- Dubliners
- Exiles
Dubliners contains 15 stories arranged to trace life from childhood to maturity. The final story, 'The Dead', is widely considered one of the greatest short stories in the English language.
7. The Martello tower at Sandycove, which opens Ulysses, is now home to what?
- A restaurant
- A lighthouse
- The James Joyce Tower and Museum
- A military museum
Joyce stayed in the tower for just six nights in September 1904 with Oliver St John Gogarty, who became the model for Buck Mulligan. Joyce left after Gogarty fired a pistol at pots above Joyce's bed.
8. What literary technique is Joyce credited with perfecting in Ulysses?
- Stream of consciousness
- Magical realism
- Unreliable narrator
- Frame narrative
Molly Bloom's famous final soliloquy runs for over 24,000 words with almost no punctuation — one of the longest sentences in literature. It ends with the word 'Yes', repeated affirmatively.
9. Where did James Joyce spend most of his adult life?
- London, England
- Dublin, Ireland
- New York, USA
- Continental Europe
Though Joyce wrote obsessively about Dublin, he left Ireland at 22 and rarely returned. He lived in Trieste, Zurich, and Paris. He once said: 'I have not left my country; it is my country that has left me.'
10. What is the name of the fictional alter ego Joyce used in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man?
- Stephen Dedalus
- Leopold Bloom
- Gabriel Conroy
- Buck Mulligan
The name Dedalus references the Greek mythological craftsman Daedalus, who built wings to escape Crete. Joyce saw the artist as someone who must similarly fashion wings to escape the constraints of society.
11. Which Irish literary prize, first awarded in 1969, is one of the most prestigious for fiction?
- International Dublin Literary Award
- Booker Prize
- Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year
- Whitbread Prize
The International Dublin Literary Award carries a prize of 100,000 euros, making it one of the richest literary prizes in the world. It is nominated by public libraries from around the globe.
12. Which famous Dublin pub features in Ulysses and still operates today?
- The Temple Bar
- O'Donoghue's
- The Brazen Head
- Davy Byrne's
In Ulysses, Leopold Bloom stops at Davy Byrne's on Duke Street for a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy. Every Bloomsday, fans recreate the meal at the pub, which has served since 1889.
13. How many languages could James Joyce reportedly speak or read?
- 3
- 13
- 7
- 17
Joyce was an extraordinary polyglot. He was fluent in English, French, Italian, and German, had strong Latin and Greek, and studied Norwegian specifically to read Henrik Ibsen in the original.
14. Which Irish poet won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, two years before Joyce published his next major work?
- Samuel Beckett
- Seamus Heaney
- Oscar Wilde
- W.B. Yeats
Joyce never won the Nobel Prize despite being one of the most influential novelists of the 20th century. When asked if he would meet Joyce, Yeats reportedly said the younger writer was 'too full of his own genius.'
15. What is the last word of Ulysses?
- Yes
- Love
- Dublin
- Home
Molly Bloom's soliloquy ends: '...and yes I said yes I will Yes.' Joyce told his friend Frank Budgen that the word 'yes' was the most positive word in the English language and the ideal way to end the book.