Limerick Literary Pub Crawl honors Irish roots of Bloomsday

On Tuesday, Bloomsday celebrants were just as festive as the May 3 runners, but far less sweaty.

Instead of crossing a finish line, the Spokane-Limerick Sister City Society honored the original literary Bloomsday by hosting a Limerick Literary Pub Crawl.

Bloomsday is an annual celebration held every June 16 in Ireland – and globally – to commemorate the life and works of Irish author James Joyce. The event takes its name from Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Joyce’s novel “Ulysses,” and the epic is set entirely on June 16, 1904.

Don Kardong christened Spokane’s annual road race, Bloomsday, as a nod to the book.

Society president, Kerry Lynch, heard about the pub crawl while visiting Dublin and introduced the idea to the group.

The event was an immediate hit, but took a lengthy pause during the pandemic.

“It’s our first post-COVID pub crawl,” she said.

The Spokane-Limerick Sister Society officially began on March 4, 1990, with a joint agreement signed in Spokane by the mayors of Spokane and Limerick.

Tom Keefe, aka St. Patrick of Spokane, got the ball rolling while working in the mayor’s office in Seattle.

“Seattle had become Sister Cities with Galway, but the folks in Limerick had lobbied hard and were disappointed,” he recalled.

When he visited with his late friend and former Spokane mayor, Jack Geraghty, Keefe pitched the idea.

“I said, ‘Why don’t you partner with Limerick?’ ”

Geraghty took the idea to the Spokane Irish community and found a receptive audience.

At that time, the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick had already launched Spokane’s popular St. Patrick’s Day parade.

“It was a funky little parade that just grew,” said former Spokane County Superior Court judge Jim Murphy, a founding member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick. “It was great to have a parade, but we wanted to engage in promoting cultural outreach, too.”

Thirty-six years later, the Spokane-Limerick Sister City Society now boasts the largest membership among Spokane’s five sister cities.

“It’s estimated that a quarter of Spokane’s population is Irish,” Murphy said.

He and Keefe still serve on the board, and Lynch has served as president for the past 32 years.

“My late husband, Jack, and I led many visits to Limerick over the years,” she said. “We’ve had city employee exchanges and official visits between our cities every year except during COVID and welcomed many new families to Spokane who emigrated from Limerick and other parts of Ireland.”

Additionally, the association provides scholarships for students from Eastern Washington University to study at the University of Limerick.

“Our annual Irish dinner raises funds for the scholarship,” Murphy said.

The Bloomsday pub crawl offers another opportunity to share Ireland’s rich cultural heritage while having a bit of craic (fun).

At O’Doherty’s Irish Grille, the literary tour launched with publican Tim O’Doherty offering a toast and leading the group in singing “You Are My Sunshine” in honor of his mother.

St. Patrick of Spokane offered a bit of history, and Murphy provided a factoid about the obscure origins of the Limerick and offered an example of the poetic form.

You can’t have a gathering of the Irish without music.

Ruby Devine played guitar and sang “The Wild Rover,” accompanied by Steve Schneider on the bodhrán (Irish drum), and O’Doherty and his son-in-law led the group in the Notre Dame fight song.

Bagpiper Kenyon Fields led the journey from O’Doherty’s to the Flatstick Pub, where May Kirkpatrick, a special guest from Ireland, sang traditional Irish ballads. Her daughter lives in Spokane, and Kirkpatrick was in town for her grandson’s graduation from Mead High School.

The group proceeded to Dry Fly Distilling with a brief detour through the lobby of the Historic Davenport, and finally ended their Bloomsday trek with dinner at Shawn O’Donnell’s Irish pub.

Each stop featured music, factoids, toasts, limericks and readings.

“We always have readings from ‘Ulysses,’ Keefe said. “It’s the Irish version of the Holy Bible.”

Lynch is glad the Bloomsday Literary Pub Crawl has returned.

“It’s a way to celebrate our Irish heritage and language,” she said.

As the Limerick-Spokane Sister Cities group left O’Doherty’s, Tim said, “Thanks so much for celebrating the true Bloomsday with us! Shake a hand, and make a new friend, because that’s what it’s all about in an Irish pub.”

And who knows what fabulous new poetry might emerge following this year’s event?

“Many limericks have been written after pub crawls,” said Murphy.

Contact Cindy Hval at dchval@juno.com