Celebrations have begun in Dublin to mark the Bloomsday Centenary, the fictional date on which the characters in James Joyce's classic work Ulysses undertook their epic journeys.
Thousands turned up this morning at a special open-air breakfast in the centre of the capital.
O'Connell Street was transformed into an outdoor eatery for the Bloomsday Centenary Breakfast, a mass commemoration of Leopold Bloom's famous meal in Joyce's novel.
As well as free breakfast, visitors were treated to a display of street theatre. A carnival atmosphere filled the capital's main street.
The so-called Denny Bloomin' Breakfast was a free event which gave three servings to ticket holders on the hour from 8.30am to 11.30am.
The Taoiseach officially opened the Bloomsday 100 Symposium yesterday, when the Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney delivered a poetry reading.
RTE has begun a series of special radio and television programmes to celebrate the centenary.
Organisers are marking the Bloomsday Centenary with a month long festival, culminating in a series of special events on Bloomsday, this coming Wednesday.
