If You Please, Sir, Can We Have More

If you were walking on Grafton Street yesterday, you would have seen costume-clad ladies and gentlemen strolling in Edwardian finery.

Wouldn't it be grand, you might have said, if this were a holiday and everyone could enjoy the spectacle of Bloomsday?

Ireland promotes the celebration of James Joyce's novel that few have read, and tourists find a long list of things to do if they're in town.

The problem is, it's not an official holiday for the Irish, and so the average citizen misses out on the fun.

The other problem is, Ireland can't unilaterally declare Bloomsday a holiday, where the Irish devote a day to their literary heritage. They have to ask the permission of those who hold the bailout pursestrings.

Rather than issuing a decree to make Bloomsday official, Ireland has to make a case to the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank.

The island nation is deep in the hole, and giving its citizens a day off, with pay, flies in the face of efficiency and debt repayment.

There's already a bank holiday on the first Monday of June, and to turn around and have a second holiday less than two weeks later? Where's the money to come from to pay salaries and holiday rates and all the rest?

It would come from increased revenue from tourism, and Northern Ireland would be invited to join in, and for Christ's sake they're up there celebrating the Battle of the Boyne every feckin' 12th of July and rubbing Catholic noses in defeat year after year so how about a little something for the downtrodden?

With Tourism Ireland already pushing Bloomsday, there's little traction to be gained from playing the tourism angle. The bailout tsars will want to know what it's going to cost employers, and if another holiday would harm business competitiveness.

So we won't be looking for a Bloomsday holiday any time soon.