World's first Molly Bloomsday to become a new annual event

YES, Ireland’s first cross-border, all women, multi-arts festival inspired by the work of James Joyce and his most famous female character, Molly Bloom, looks set to become an annual event as it welcomed around 20,000 festival goers across four days at various venues across Ireland’s north-west last weekend (13-16 June).

The eighteenth and final destination of a €3m European Commission funded project, ‘ULYSSES European Odyssey 2022-2024’, YES saw 117 performances featuring 684 homegrown and International artists, including musicians, actors, writers, dancers and politicians, all celebrating female creativity in the name of Molly Bloom.

Among the many highlights of the festival which spread from the city of Derry into the beaches and ancient forts of north Donegal was a historic launch event to open the No Ordinary Women conversation series featuring First Minister of Northern Ireland Michelle O’Neill MLA and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly.

There was an immense public art installation, The Molly Bed, in Ebrington Square the former British Army military barracks alongside the River Foyle at the end of the Peace Bridge created by local designer Tracey Lindsay, while SIRENSCIRCUS enjoyed a joyous, mesmerically cacaphonous sonic world premiere in St Columb’s Hall, in which over 100 musicians and performers conjured a 21st century, ever-changing collaboration between Joyce’s Ulysses Sirens episode and American avant-garde composer (and huge Joyce fan) John Cage.

Yes, also saw the world premiere of five short films -The Molly Films, a fresh presentation of a literary masterpiece, directed by young London based Ukrainian filmmaker, Sophie Muzychenko and featuring Dame Harriet Walter, Fiona Shaw, Adjoa Andoh, Siobhán McSweeney and Eve Hewson. 

The Molly Films are available now to stream online at www.yesderry.com until midnight on Tuesday 25th June.

On the final day of YES (16 June), festival goers were treated to an epic 18-hour event, as ‘Bloomsday’, the annual celebration of Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses, became ‘Molly Bloomsday’ for the first time ever as the famed Dublin locations of Ulysses were reimagined in venues and locations across Derry~Donegal.

Molly Bloomsday kicked off with an unforgettable, early start as Donegal’s The Henry Girls sang and played at the centre of Iron-Age sun-fort An Grianán of Aileach with a birdsong backing and the watery backdrop of spectacular views across the estuary of Lough Swilly sweeping northwards into the Atlantic Ocean while Molly’s Parade - an unprecedented and exhilarating event, bringing together parading bands from both traditions and from across the border providing an immense city soundtrack, inspired by Molly Bloom’s love of marching military bands.

Laila el Bazi and Jolanda Bazzi of The Sixteen Nations programme, Leeuwarden, Netherlands, performing at the inaugural YES.

Seán Doran, Artistic Director of Ireland’s Arts Over Borders (producer of YES and Lead Artistic Partner of the overall ULYSSES European Odyssey project), said, “Last week, we finally arrived for the four days of YES in Ireland’s historical and spectacularly beautiful north-west. 

"This was after a long exhilarating two-year 18 European city odyssey that commenced in Athens in September 2022 and zigzagged through Berlin, Paris, Lisbon, Budapest, Istanbul, Trieste and Zürich before reaching Ireland for the grand finale of Ulysses’ last Episode, Penelope, in Derry~Donegal.  Our designated theme was ‘The Future: A Female Vision’, for which our female curators Shauna Kelpie, Margaret Kelly, Martina Devlin and Tracey Lindsay garnered a resounding public response for their bounteous programme of events.

"These wonderful public plaudits seem now to have set the course that the future will indeed be a female vision for an annual all women multi-arts YES event in the north-west.  We all owe a big thanks to Creative Europe, the Department for Foreign Affairs, the NI Executive and Urban Villages, Derry & Strabane District Council, Shared Island and Creative Ireland for helping this new future vision to be born.”