A very special reception was held on the 16th of June at Macau Military Club to commemorate “Bloomsday”, a celebration named after the central character Leopold Bloom in the masterpiece Ulysses, by world-renowned Irish writer James Joyce.
“Bloomsday” is perhaps the only international day dedicated to a literary book, reflecting Irish people’s respect for literature and culture. The worldwide celebrations appear in many ways, including “cosplay” where participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character from the book, readings of the book, performances, visiting places in Dublin referred to in the book, and academic conferences about Joyce and his works. In Macau, in addition to readings from Ulysses, the Trinity College Dublin Chapel Choir was invited to perform at the reception.
This event was just the latest in a series of recent cultural and literary activities hosted by the Irish Consulate to Hong Kong and Macau. Though only opened last year, they’ve given strong importance to a series of arts and culture events. CLOSER sat down with Peter Ryan, the first Consul General of Ireland to Hong Kong and Macau, to hear his thoughts on how art and culture play a role in diplomacy.
The Irish Consulate for Hong Kong and Macau opened last year. As the first Consul General, how do you see this first year of activity in these two cities?
We’ve had a wonderfully productive time: we’ve enjoyed ourselves a lot, we’ve learnt a lot along the way, and we’ve made a lot of friends. We’ve really been amazed with the positive welcome that we received from Macau, the way new partners came aboard from the Macau Literary Festival, to Alexis Tam’s office of the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, and the Irish Chamber of Commerce of Macau… We see this as a journey of 20 or 30 years’ engagement with each other.
Youíve given strong importance to arts and culture, with the celebrations of St. Patrickís Day, Bloomsday, poetry and literary events, etc. Whatís the role of arts and culture in terms of diplomacy?
Arts and culture are at the heart of Irish identity. One of the things that make Irish people unique is that we take a global view of friendships. We want to learn about overseas cultures and we want to share our own culture as well.
Irish people are very fortunate that we’re able to engage with multiple cultures around the world. This is the key element of the consulate’s effort in Macau. We want to make friendships and build relationships with leaders in the literary arts and culture field. We could introduce our young artists and young writers to come visit Macau, to meet their counterparts, to meet the people here, and from other places around the world. This is very special for us. We’re doing everything we can to help encourage our young artists and young writers to think about Macau and learn a little bit about Macau also.
You partnered with the Macau literary festival this year. Is this something you intend to continue?
One of the very first people I met when I came to Macau was Ricardo [Pinto] and the second was Hélder [Beja]. I love their style; they are so visionary in their ambitions. They have their informal way of doing business while having an extraordinary richness and real depth of understanding of world literary figures, which made them a really special partner for us.
They’ve given us advice on everything, they’re the first people to put their hands up to come to our events, and we have a special place in our hearts for them. This year was only a first start, to bring a well-known Irish writer to the Macau Literary Festival. I’ve made a promise to the Festival that I’ll do it again and Ireland will be there, and be a part of it every year. I want to thank the Macau Literary Festival and the people of Macau for the warm welcome to Irish cultural leaders.
How would you describe your experience working with the different Macau institutions? Is it easier or harder than Hong Kong to make things happen?
I’ve served in many different places, each country or place has its own style of working, and this is a part of the job of a diplomat to adapt, and to build those relationships and as well as our trust.
One of the features for me in our time in Macau is that we’ve been able to build the element of trust very quickly. And to be able to have done what we’ve done is only because of the relationships we’ve had with people.
We could not have had a successful visit from Marita Conlon-McKenna without the trust of the Literary Festival. She’s one of our greatest writers and she wanted to come to learn, I know how much it meant to her to have the opportunity to come here, so that makes my job so much more enjoyable. We got to introduce her to Macau, and in turn she had influence back in Ireland to say “I went to Macau, the literary festival was great. It was a really worthwhile exchange for me” and in future it’ll help us bring more young writers here.
What other cultural and arts projects is the Consulate working on?
We’re working on a number of other cultural projects for the second half of the year. We’ll be bringing one of our most famous culinary writers here, and we’ll also be bringing a number of Irish teachers over the coming weeks to do some introductory classes about Ireland at local schools. We’re constantly trying to think of new and exciting things to do. And we will take advice from our friends because we’re learning all the time.