Release date: June 16th 2024
 
Schema (view full Schema here)
Scene: The Tower
Hour: 8am
Organ: -
Colour: White / gold
Symbol: Heir
Art: Theology
Technic: Narrative (young)
 
Episode Storyline and Characters
At 8am, Malachi "Buck" Mulligan, a boisterous medical student, calls aspiring writer Stephen Dedalus up to the roof of the Sandycove Martello tower, where they both live. There is tension between Dedalus and Mulligan stemming from a cruel remark Stephen overheard Mulligan make about his recently deceased mother and from the fact that Mulligan has invited an English student, Haines, to stay with them. The three men eat breakfast and walk to the shore, where Mulligan demands from Stephen the key to the tower and a loan. The three make plans to meet at a pub, The Ship, at 12:30pm. Departing, Stephen decides that he will not return to the tower that night, as Mulligan, the "usurper", has taken it over.
 
Episode 1, Telemachus // Crafted by The Kilbeggan Distillery, in the oldest working pot still in the world
Nestled along the banks of the meandering River Brosna, Kilbeggan Distillery stands as a testament to Ireland's rich whiskey heritage. With its storied past, unique character, and captivating spirits, this historic distillery invites visitors on a spirited journey through time.
 
Kilbeggan Distillery is the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in Ireland. Matthew MacManus obtained the license to produce whiskey in 1757. The Locke’s family took over in 1843 and ran the distillery until it ceased production in 1954 and closed in 1957. Most of the surviving machinery dates from this period. The distillery closed for several reasons. The business was never thoroughly modernised, there were high taxation and transportation costs, economic depression reduced demand for whiskey in Ireland in the 1920s and 30s while beer, being cheaper, grew in popularity. And the American market was closed between 1920 and 1933, due to prohibition.
 
Read the full backstory here.
 
Artistic inspiration for label designed by Stranger & Stranger
Discover Elsinore Castle from Shakespeare's Hamlet; the George VII one penny stamp dated June 16th 1904 belching out of the smokestack of the RMS Leinster (one of the two mailboats that departed Kingstown for Holyhead daily -- she was torpedoed by a German submarine, 564 passengers and crew died); a marble statue of Telemachus; Stephen Dedalus (Joyce’s alter ego) and his reflection -- generated by AI -- in the broken mirror wearing a helmet made of torn pages of Ulysses (we felt it fitting that the portrait be designed by an entity incapable of creating art, as a deliberate juxtaposition to Joyce’s assertion that Irish art is merely “the cracked looking-glass of a servant”); the actual key to the Dalkey Martello tower; Buck Mulligan atop that tower with a "head equine in shape" borrowed from Troytown (the famous Irish race horse), which in turn is perched upon the original pulpit from the little chapel at Clongowes Wood College; the black panther; the scrotum-tightening sea and many more gems, all framed in cut-out-pages of the 1922 edition Ulysses. Our goal was and is to always live up to Joyce's challenge that he “‎put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries".
 
Welcome to the journey.