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Ulysses
James Joyce
Complete Recording
Ulysses; James Joyce; Complete Recording
Studio album by RTÉ Players
Recorded	1982
Genre	Drama
Length	29:44:55
Label	RTÉ with the Lannan Foundation

The Ulysses broadcast began on 16 June 1982 (Bloomsday) when the Irish state broadcaster, RTÉ Radio, transmitted an uninterrupted 30-hour dramatised radio performance, by 33 actors of the RTÉ Players, of the entire text of James Joyce's epic 1922 novel, Ulysses, to commemorate the centenary of the author's birth (born 2 February 1882).^[1] The broadcast began at 6.30 am and continued until midday the next day. It was carried by live relay internationally,^[2]^[3] and it won a Jacob's Broadcasting Award in recognition of its achievement.

Writing in The Spectator, John Phipps said, "I can't praise it enough. It is a masterpiece, a rare, enduring example of radio drama as art" and "The RTÉ players give performances of great clarity and insight."^[2]

The full 30-hour broadcast was repeated for the first time in 38 years on RTÉ Radio 1 Extra on 16 June 2020, beginning at 8 am. The decision to repeat the transmission was influenced by the death in January of that year of Joyce's grandson and literary estate executor, Stephen Joyce, and by the quarantine introduced in Ireland to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus.^[4] It was broadcast once again on the 120th anniversary of Bloomsday on Radio 1 Extra on 16 June 2024.^[5]

The novel Ulysses contains about 265,000 words from a vocabulary of 30,030 words.^[6] This record-breaking and historic^[1]^[7] live literary broadcast was originally released to the public, after the broadcast, as a recording on 20 audio cassettes in 1982^[8] and later digitally remastered on compact disc in two formats: as a 32-CD boxed set, and as a three-CD set of MP3 audio files, released in 2004 (OCLC 315482641 and 605276262).^[9]

Track listing (MP3 version)

Disc 1	Length 9:57:05
Track	Episode	Time
01	Telemachus	45:52
02	Nestor	32:26
03	Proteus	48:07
04	Calypso	45:44
05	Lotus Eaters	42:25
06	Hades	1:08:58
07	Aeolus	1:07:59
08	Lestrygonians 1	52:06
09	Lestrygonians 2	31:45
10	Scylla and Charybdis 1	56:11
11	Scylla and Charybdis 2	20:14
12	Wandering Rocks 1	1:01:06
13	Wandering Rocks 2	24:12

Disc 2	Length 10:02:29
Track	Episode	Time
14	Sirens 1	1:10:04
15	Sirens 2	27:08
16	Cyclops 1	1:02:11
17	Cyclops 2	1:11:08
18	Nausicaa 1	58:34
19	Nausicaa 2	45:15
20	Oxen of the Sun 1	57:13
21	Oxen of the Sun 2	1:03:10
22	Oxen of the Sun 3	20:06
23	Circe 1	1:07:56
24	Circe 2	59:44

Disc 3	Length 9:45:21
Track	Episode	Time
25	Circe 3	1:09:00
26	Circe 4	1:01:19
27	Circe 5	30:53
28	Eumaeus 1	1:01:14
29	Eumaeus 2	1:11:34
30	Ithaca 1	55:05
31	Ithaca 2	58:39
32	Ithaca 3	42:43
33	Penelope 1	59:08
34	Penelope 2	54:46
35	Penelope 3	21:00
Total length 29:44:55

Broadcast personnel (the RTÉ Players)

Narrators ^[10]

Conor Farrington
Peter Dix
Brendan Cauldwell
Aiden Grennell
Tomas Studley
Deirdre O'Meara

Cast

Leopold Bloom – Ronnie Walsh
Molly Bloom – Pegg Monahan
Stephen Dedalus – Patrick Dawson
Buck Mulligan – Gerry McArdle
Mr. Deasy – Brendan Cauldwell
Myles Crawford – Seamus Forde
Bantam Lyons – Jim Reid
Simon Dedalus – Eamon Keane
Haines – Laurence Foster
Miss Douce – Colette Proctor
Miss Kennedy – Barbara McCaughey
Nosy Flynn – Gerald Fitzmahony
Ben Dollard – Breandán Ó Dúill
Ned Lambert – Denis Staunton
W.B. Murphy – Liam O'Callaghan
Cyril Sargent – Brendan Conroy
Colm – Colm Hefferon
Zoe Higgins – Marcella O'Riordan
Bella Cohen – Eileen Colgan
John Henry Menton – Eoin White
The Nymph – Cathryn Brennan
Virag – Christopher Casson
Old Gummy Granny – Neasa Ní Annracháin
Stephen's Mother – Joan Plunkett
Mrs. Yelverton-Barry – Daphne Carroll
Cissy Caffrey – Kate Minogue
Alf Bergin – Joe Taylor
The Gaffer – Ivan Hanly

Production personnel

Text Consultant – Roland McHugh
Sound Supervision – Marcus Mac Donald
Executive Producer – Micheál Ó hAodha
Director – William Styles

References

^ ^a ^b 1982 Recordings. RTÉ. Retrieved: 2010-09-12.
^ ^a ^b Phipps, John (9 April 2022). "Don't read Ulysses; listen to it". The Spectator. Ireland. 16 June 1982. 6:30 a.m. Radios all over the country emit the words 'Stately, plump Buck Mulligan', and don't stop broadcasting until they have read out every word of Ulysses, down to its last, heart-stopping syllable.
^ Cue the magical music of memory, Irish Times. Retrieved: 2010-09-12.
^ Ulysses on the radio: a 29-hour epic is released from the archives to mark Bloomsday Irish Independent, 2020-06-14.
^ Ulysses broadcast, RTÉ Radio 1 Extra, 2024-06-16.
^ Analyzing Ulysses Archived 2008-10-25 at the Wayback Machine by Avinash Vora, 2008-10-20. Retrieved: 2010-09-12.
^ Fair City actor Brendan Cauldwell dies at 83. Irish Independent, 2006-01-13. Retrieved: 2010-09-12.
^ Library catalogue entry. UCD. Retrieved: 2010-09-12.
^ Reading Ulysses. RTÉ. Retrieved: 2010-09-12.
^ Cast list. RTÉ. Retrieved: 2010-09-12.