Season III of Irish Stew concludes with our conversation with a very Global Irish citizen, Dan Mulhall, Ireland’s Ambassador to the United States and your guide to one of the classics of Irish literature through his recently published Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey.

Join us as we tour the world with one of Ireland’s top diplomats as he wields Ireland’s soft power and uses Ireland’s culture to open doors and strengthen ties.

And from one diplomatic posting to the next, he lugged one weighty tome, James Joyce’s Ulysses, a literary classic he’ll turn to repeatedly, finally writing Ulysses, a Reader’s Odyssey his highly personal guidebook through the novel’s often difficult terrain, highlighting central character Leopold Bloom as an “ambassador for our day.”

 We touch on Ireland’s ability to build bridges among countries, its seat on the UN Security Council as Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s border, the global admiration for Ireland’s peacekeeping forces, and telling Ireland’s story in the US to officials on both sides of the aisle, and always come back to how culture is Ireland’s passport to the world today.

Along the way Dan favors us with a reading from Ulysses paired with a passage from his book that explores that section.

 The episode ends with a special treat, part of the closing chapter of Ulysses, “Molly Bloom’s Soliloquy,” brilliantly performed by actress Aedín Maloney, well known for her interpretation of this piece.

NB: This episode was recorded on Feb 3, 2022 almost three weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine   Sadly the hope of reducing the then building Ukrainian border tensions did not come to pass.

Dan Mulhall Links

• Biography at the Department of Foreign Affairs
• Twitter
  
  
• Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey book links
  • New Island Books 
  • Amazon
  • Twitter
• Embassy of Ireland USA: Twitter

Aedin Maloney Links

• Twitter
• Fallen Angel Theatre Company