Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly to launch YES festival and first ever ‘Molly Bloomsday’ in Derry in honour of James Joyce’s most famous female character

Following a Civic Reception in the city’s historic Guildhall on Thursday the First Minister and Deputy First Minister will be in conversation on Women and Leadership at a special event in St. Columb’s Hall.

The event will be hosted by Martina Devlin, writer, newspaper columnist and curator of the ‘No Ordinary Women’ strand of the YES festival.

Over the course of the festival the ‘No Ordinary Women’ series will feature talks with Michelle O’Neill, Emma Little-Pengelly, Shami Chakrabarti, Caoilfhionn Gallagher, Susan McKay, Mary Robinson, Louise Cullen, Bernadette McAliskey, Dr. Ailbhe Smyth, Flor MacCarthy, Aoife Moore, Orla Guerin, Marion McKeone, Jude Webber and Miriam O’Callaghan.

To book tickets for these events, visit: www.yesderry.com/programme/no-ordinary-women

It is all part of YES, a new celebration of female creativity, in which, for the first time ‘Bloomsday’, the annual celebration of Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses, which was set on one day, June 16, 1904, and followed the peregrinations of protagonist Leopold Bloom around Dublin, will become instead ‘Molly Bloomsday’.

It is being billed as the largest-ever Ulysses celebrations in honour Joyce’s most famous female character and her stream-of-conscious monologue in the ‘Penelope’ chapter at the very end of the novel.

The first ever Molly Bloomsday celebrations will take place on Sunday, June 16, and will feature an odyssey from Donegal’s beaches and ancient forts to the city through 18 locations and events.

There will be the world premiere of five star-studded short films; a one-off musical-literary collaboration between James Joyce, John Cage and two hundred musicians; an immense bedtime art installation; an unprecedented city parade on Derry’s Walls; a unique all-female talks programme; multi-media artists from all over Europe – all building to the epic 18-hour Molly Bloomsday finale.

Award-winning stage and screen actors Fiona Shaw, Harriet Walter, Siobhan McSweeney, Eve Hewson and Adjoa Andoh are among the eight actors participating in The Molly Films, in which each of them reads one of the eight long sentences that form Molly Bloom’s extraordinary stream of consciousness monologue in the Penelope episode of Ulysses. The films will be screened separately across the festival.

The organisers say Derry and Donegal will come alive with dance, music, food, public art, literature, conversation and spectacle, before YES culminates in an epic 18-hour event, transposing the famed Dublin locations of Ulysses to new places north of the Irish border.

Here are a few moments over the four days that you may not want to miss:

Thursday, June 13, 6.30pm at the YES Hub, St. Columb’s Hall

Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly discuss Women and Leadership at a special event, hosted by Martina Devlin. To book tickets, please visit: www.yesderry.com/programme/no-ordinary-women/

Thursday, June 13, to Sunday, June 16 at the Volta Cinema, YES Hub, St Columb’s Hall

The world premiere of The Molly Films, a fresh presentation of a literary masterpiece, directed by Ukrainian filmmaker, Sophie Muzychenko and featuring Dame Harriet Walter, Fiona Shaw, Adjoa Andoh, Siobhán McSweeney and Eve Hewson. The Molly Films will also screen worldwide, digitally, at dawn (4.38am) on Monday, June 17, as the final event of Molly Bloomsday.

Sunday, June 16, 4pm-6pm at Ebrington Square

SIRENSCIRCUS - a joyous sonic world premiere experience at Derry’s waterside. SIRENSCIRCUS is a 21st century, ever-changing collaboration between Joyce and US composer (and huge Joyce fan) John Cage, featuring over 100 musicians, performers, audience participants and probably every musical instrument you can imagine.

Thursday, June 13 to Sunday, June 16 at the YES Hub, St. Columb’s Hall

‘No Ordinary Women (NOW)’ - a discussion and ideas festival all of its own. Speakers include former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, Orla Guerin and Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC.

Sunday, June 16, 7.30pm at the Millennium Forum, Derry

O Rocks! -Music and poetry from one of Ireland’s most celebrated artists, Imelda May, who will also be in conversation on her song-writing and debut poetry collection, A Lick and A Promise.

Sunday, June 16, 3pm-4pm on the Derry City Walls

Molly’s Parade - an unprecedented and exhilarating event, bringing together parading bands from both traditions, providing an immense city soundtrack, inspired by Molly Bloom’s love of marching military bands.

Thursday, June 13 to Sunday, June 16 at Ebrington Square

The Molly Bed, a large-scale interactive installation by artist Tracey Lindsay, conveying messages from women around the world.

Thursday June 13 to Sunday, June 16, venues in Derry and Donegal

The Sixteen Nations - a vibrant programme of events, celebrating the diverse creativity of international female artists. Theatres, galleries, music venues, pubs and outdoor spaces will host celebrated and emerging artists representing photography, music, documentary film, DJs, visual and textile art, dance, circus and song.

From 8am on Sunday, June 16 to 2am on Monday, June 17

Molly Bloomsday will see Ulysses’ Dublin scenes re-interpreted across the compelling and evocative urban and rural scenery of Ireland’s north-west. A glorious reimagining of Bloomsday in the city’s streets, bars, historic Guildhall Square and walls and the beaches and coastline of Donegal, decorated with folklore, mythology and Irish history.

YES is the culmination of the ULYSSES European Odyssey, the largest-ever Ulysses celebration, which will have visited eighteen European cities by the time it closes in Derry. www.ulysseseurope.eu

At a time when more is being written about both Joyce’s wife Nora Barnacle and Molly Bloom, YES and its theme The Future: A Female Vision invite audiences to think about the role of women in the writer’s life and work, and more widely, in society, in art, in business, in politics, as thinkers, as creatives, as leaders.

For all information and to book festival tickets please visit: www.yesderry.com