One of the surprises of publishing a memoir last year has been the realisation that I may need to take writing lessons. No, I don’t mean lessons in sentence or paragraph construction (critics may have their own opinions about that). I mean the mechanics of writing with a pen on paper, something I last studied more than half a century ago at school.Decades of using typewriters and computer keyboards have since obliterated all confidence in my cursive writing style, never very stylish in the first place. So now, when writing by hand, I print all letters, except for signatures.And in my defence, I’m a neat crossword solver. But the technique falls apart under pressure. Hence events like last weekend’s Dalkey Book Festival where, signing copies for a long queue of lovely people afterwards, I was appalled at some of the hieroglyphics emanating from the end of my biro.It doesn’t help that, while inscribing books, you also tend to be talking or listening to people, which (for me anyway) is like patting your head and rubbing your stomach simultaneously.Perhaps if I tried going full cursive again, it would all come back to me, like riding a bike. It would certainly be quicker. But I worry that it might be like a golfer changing his swing: in the short term, my technique might fall apart, and I’d start missing the fairways of legibility completely.So I won’t risk changing anything before the Hinterland Festival in Kells next weekend, where I may also have to sign copies. Come autumn, however, I will definitely consider an evening course in calligraphy.***The picture postcard village of Dalkey is hard to improve as a festival venue. But my debut appearance at the book event was in the even more spectacular outpost of Dillon’s Park, down by the seafront, overlooking Dalkey Island.The latter, as I was reminded there, was once a kingdom of sorts. In the years before 1798, Dubliners used to congregate on and near it for the coronation of a “King of Dalkey Island”. During an era of rising republicanism, the ceremony satirised the actual British monarchy (although its political nature was partly disguised by the event’s surface appearance as a mere “drinking club”).That and popularity – up to 20,000 attended – made the city fathers nervous, until the gathering was banned in 1797.Pithily for the forerunner of a literary festival, the last coronation at Dalkey was of a Dublin bookseller, Stephen Armitage. And the modern event may be continuing tradition in other ways too. [ Reviving the lost art of letter writing: ‘Any handwritten letter is a love letter of sorts’Opens in new window ]Although fundamentally concerned with literature, authors and readers at the book festival tend to convene in and around Finnegan’s Pub at night, giving the event the surface appearance of a 1790s-style debauch.The coronation of a King of Dalkey was revived briefly in 1954, this time by Irish-language enthusiasts, who elected a queen as well. That was the same year certain Dublin-based writers, including Patrick Kavanagh and Flann O’Brien, first celebrated Bloomsday. But unlike Bloomsday, the Dalkey monarchist revival did not take off. I can find no mention of it in the archives after 1955.***Speaking of Bloomsday, one last time (maybe), the latest reiteration inspired another attempt to continue my record in adulthood of reading Ulysses in full once a decade.There have been a few failed attempts. As with climbing Mount Everest, those mounting assaults on Joyce’s masterpiece have a seasonal window. It starts in mid-May, when June 16th looms as a motivating factor. But if you don’t get past, say, Oxen of the Sun (the episode set in Holles Street hospital, most of which is written in archaic English) by then, it’s probably too late, as all urgency disappears and the snows of indifference close in for another year.Happily, this time, I reached Camp 4 (Circe, set in Monto) by the middle of last week, with plenty of oxygen left and a good weather forecast. As we speak, midway through Molly Bloom’s soliloquy, I can almost touch the summit.[ On Bloomsday, if you take just one message from Ulysses then it should be this oneOpens in new window ]Mind you, as with learning to write again, I could do with reading classes. There are so many distractions these days, it seems much harder to concentrate on a book than before. So I had to cheat a bit this time, supplementing actual reading with extracts from the audiobook.To mix metaphors, this feels like running a marathon with the new carbon-plate flying shoes. On the other hand, I’ve compensated with some sections by reading and listening simultaneously.As always, I find more in the book with each new completion. All human life is there, including mine as I now know, although the precocious Joyce was a mere thirtysomething when he wrote it.Anyway, to stay with the Dublin Marathon analogy, I’m just passing the RDS now, with a mile to go. There is some pain still ahead, but barring disaster, it’s too late to stop. Will I finish it? Yes, he said, yes I will yes.