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Nearly 100 years after Joyce wrote his seminal polyglot work, are we any closer to a technological solution to breaking down the barriers of language? Not if the recent scuffle over Google Translate is any indication.

Joyce and the Limits of the Twentieth Century

In celebration of Bloomsday (June 16, the 107th anniversary of the fictional events that occur in his Ulysses), I'll reach beyond time, death, and the limits of my own or anyone else's knowledge to affirm that James Joyce would have adored Google Translate.

The Irish novelist was first a translator, a student, and teacher of modern languages. He composed Ulysses over eight years in exile, on the run from World War One, supporting himself teaching English to the Italian, German, and French speakers of Trieste, Zürich, and Paris. Part of Ulysses's celebrated difficulty is its untranslated bits of these three languages, plus snatches of Latin, Greek, Hebrew,...

Irish actor T.P. McKenna has died at the age of 81.

The star, full name Thomas Patrick McKenna, passed away on Sunday after a long illness.

McKenna had a long and varied career, which began on the stage in Dublin's renowned Abbey Theatre, where he undertook more than 70 roles.

He also performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre Company, and starred in a number of British TV dramas including The Avengers, Doctor Who, The Saint and The Sweeney.

McKenna worked with A-listers including Dustin Hoffman and Gregory Peck, and racked up film credits with roles in Ulysses, Straw Dogs and A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man.

McKenna, who will be laid to rest in his hometown of Mullah, is survived by four sons and a daughter.

Maverick director best known for his film of Ulysses – widely seen as a noble failure

There must be something quixotic about a director who sets out to make a film of James Joyce's Ulysses. A passionate Joycean, Joseph Strick, who has died aged 86, was undeterred by the challenge and the obstacles: "Even before I made it, people were saying it was unfilmable. I think the truth is, some people just find the book unreadable."

The iconoclastic Strick first envisaged an 18-hour version, faithful to every word, but unsurprisingly he could not get anyone to finance it. When the final two-hour version, shot in Dublin, was completed in 1967, it fell foul of censorship – just like the novel. The British Board of Film Censors requested 29 cuts to remove sexual references from Molly Bloom's final, expletive-laden soliloquy. Strick obliged by replacing all of the offending footage with a blank screen and a high-pitched shrieking sound.

Oscar-winning director, screenwriter and producer Joseph Strick has died from congestive heart failure at the age of 86.

Strick, who was born in Pennsylvania, died on 1 June in Paris, France, where he had lived for several years.

He won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject in 1970 for Interviews With My Lai Veterans, which he wrote, produced and directed.

He also won the British Academy Television Awards (BAFTA) Flaherty Documentary Award for his 1959 film, The Savage Eye.

But Strick was perhaps best known for his screen adaptations of risque literary works including The Balcony, Ulysses and Tropic of Cancer, starring Rip Torn.

He hit headlines in 1970 after losing a court battle to overturn the X rating awarded to Tropic by the Motion Picture Association of America. The movie retained its adult rating until the early 1990s, when it was lowered to allow anyone 17 and over to view the film.

Other notable movie credits include Never Cry Wolf, Ring of Bright Water and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Strick is survived by his second wife, Martine Rossignol Strick, and their two children, as well as his three kids from his first marriage.