Celebrations have taken places across Dublin to mark Bloomsday, the day immortalised by James Joyce in his novel Ulysses.
For more than 70 years, 16 June has been marked throughout the capital with recitals and re-enactments from scenes from the authors most famous work.
The traditional Bloomsday breakfast took place in Belvedere College in Dublin this morning where Joyce attended secondary school from 1893 to 1989.
Dozens of people in Edwardian costume also gathered at the nearby James Joyce's Centre on North Great George's Street where the day was celebrated in song and spoken word.
What was traditionally a one-day literary celebration is now an almost week long festival with multiple events, with this years itinerary including a run and yoga workshops.
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Darina Gallagher, Director of the James Joyce Centre says the festival is now reaching a wider audience
"It's six days of partying and celebrating," he said.
"This year we chose themes of health and wellness, celebrating our city and our nationhood, through yoga, through running through the streets of Dublin, so many walking tours to have your own Odyssey through the city.
"So, really we're connecting in an outdoor way to the city, celebrating the streets and the sea swims even."
Read more:
What happened on the very first Bloomsday in 1954?
Bloomsday brings a large number of international visitors to Dublin and among those attending the celebrations this year was Mayank Austen Soofi, who writes a daily column on life in Delhi for the Hindustan Times.
He discovered Ulysses during Covid and has written about his love for the novel and his experience of the Bloomsday festival in Dublin in a number of columns this week which have been published in the paper, which has a print circulation of 18 million and further online readership.
"I think what I've seen from my first week is that this is crazy. This is the only city that people are so strongly relating to the novel, even though many of them haven't read it, but it's something that a writer and his novel has come to make Dublin. It's like that it has become the foundation of Dublin.
"In fact, yesterday, one gentleman was saying, and I completely agreed with him, that Ulysses is the Sistine Chapel of Dublin. And unlike the Sistine Chapel, you can pick it up for a cheap price, and you can take it anywhere in the world," he said.
Frances Mitchell from the Cabra History group is one of the many Dubliner's who posed for photographs with her friends in front of a Georgian door at the James Joyce Centre while decked out in full Edwardian dress.
While she attends Bloomsday events every year in Dublin, she admits she's never really understood the story.
"I've read the book, I've seen the films but I still couldn't tell you what it's about. We enjoy it anyway."
