Bloomsday & Yeats Society in Madrid bid farewell to Ambassador Cooney on Bloomsday

The Bloomsday Society and the Yeats Society in Madrid joined forces this year to celebrate Bloomsday with a collection of readings, poetry and song. The event took place at the María Pandora cultural café on Friday 16 June. Ambassador Cooney, who attended the celebrations with his wife Geraldine, was presented with farewell gifts from the Irish community ahead of his retirement. Ambassador Cooney, the former Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has served as Ambassador of Ireland to Spain for three years. In his remarks to the audience, he noted the strong historic and cultural links between Ireland and Spain, and paid tribute to the work of the Bloomsday Society and the Yeats Society.

Other events to mark the day on which Leopold Bloom traversed Dublin took place in other cities around Spain, including Barcelona and Bilbao – an indication of the popularity and universality of Joyce's most important work.