Ireland launched its biggest-ever literary shindig on Wednesday, as thousands gathered on Dublin's streets for the centenary of "Bloomsday" - the day immortalised by James Joyce in his epic novel "Ulysses".
Joyceans downed early morning pints of Guinness and ate hearty breakfasts in honour of the pork kidney, fried in "sizzling butter sauce" and sprinkled with pepper, with which the novel's hero Leopold Bloom begins his momentous day.
Outside the James Joyce centre in the shabby Georgian splendour of Dublin's north inner city, crowds quaffing pints of "foaming ebon ale" in the morning sun were entertained by actors playing out scenes from the book.
Men in boater hats and ladies in Edwardian dress complete with twirling parasols mingled with construction workers, tourists and people on stilts.
"It's as good an excuse as any to drink a pint of Guinness early in the morning," said Bob King from Nebraska.
Across the city, hundreds congregated at a stone watchtower on the coast, where the book opens. There, with Dublin Bay spread before them, they listened to actors read from Ulysses, regarded by many as the greatest novel in the English language and a landmark in Western art.
Joyce set his entire novel on June 16, 1904 - the day of his first date with the woman who later became his wife.
"Bloomsday 100" was launched on February 2 - Joyce's birthday - and brings together around 80 different events, from art exhibitions to concerts and stand-up comedy. Some 800 academics are in town for a symposium on every imaginable aspect of the writer's work.
Later on Wednesday, scores of cyclists in Edwardian costume will ride ramshackle bikes along the route walked by Joyce's fictional characters.
The party is not confined to Ireland. Organisers say some 40 countries, from South Korea to Norway, are marking Bloomsday.
Published in Paris in 1922, the novel was denounced by the Irish as un-Christian filth, banned in Britain and burned by US censors. Joyce's British contemporary Virginia Woolf complained that it "reeled with indecency".
But Joyce, whose reputation grew as the 20th century progressed, always defended his warts-and-all depiction of Edwardian Dublin.
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