A Reluctant Joycean.

Hello and welcome to my project, where I hope to help anyone who has ever dreamed of reading Ulysses by James Joyce.

I'm Aidan O'Leary, born and based in Dublin, and for 25 years I worked in tech sales, a world poles apart from a lifelong love of reading. My dad taught me to read. Every Friday we would sit down after dinner to read the latest book he had bought specifically to teach me. This project is inspired by my dad and my goal is to inspire others to read and enjoy the endless fascination and curiosity he forged in me.

In 2023, I decided to stop reading the news. I found the endless cycle of negativity exhausting, so I went looking for something more enriching to fill the space. My solution was slightly ambitious: read my way through the greatest novels ever written.

After about twenty books, I arrived at Ulysses in May 2023 with a simple goal — finish it before Bloomsday.

At first, I found it almost impenetrable.

But somewhere along the way, confusion slowly turned into fascination. After finishing the novel, I immediately reread it. Then again. And again. What started as a personal reading challenge gradually became a genuine obsession with the works of Joyce and his extraordinary life.

I spent most of 2024 studying Ulysses, exploring its characters, structure, humour and the streets of Dublin that shaped it.

In 2025, I began my first reading of Finnegans Wake — a journey that took an entire year. I'm now rereading and restudying it throughout 2026 with the goal of finishing it for a second time by the end of the year.

This site is really about that unexpected transformation: how an ordinary Dubliner looking for an escape from the noise of modern life accidentally became completely absorbed in the world of Joyce.