Dublin holds Bloomsday breakfast

James Joyce's novel caused uproar in the 1920s

A mass open-air breakfast has been held in Dublin to mark the centenary of Bloomsday, the day on which James Joyce's novel Ulysses is set.

Around 10,000 free breakfasts were served on O'Connell Street in the city.

16 June is the actual anniversary of central character Leopold Bloom's walk around the Irish capital.

But celebrations formally got under way on Saturday when poet Seamus Heaney delivered a special reading to begin the Rejoyce Dublin 2004 festival.

Sunday's breakfast commemorated the meal enjoyed by Leopold Bloom before he set off on his epic walk around Dublin on 16 June, 1904.

In the book, Bloom tucks into a meal made from offal, including roast heart, liver and mutton kidneys.

But at the breakfast event, Joyce fans were mainly offered sausages, bacon, blood pudding and tomatoes crammed into large bread rolls.

Around 70 events are being staged to mark the centenary during the next week or so.

Readings of Ulysses will take place around Dublin and Irish broadcaster RTE will show a series of Joyce-themed programmes.

Controversial

Ulysses became one of the 20th Century's most famous novels.

It was first published in serial form in 1918, but serialisation was suspended in 1920 following the journal's prosecution for publishing obscene matter.

It was eventually published in book form in Paris in 1922, but banned in the UK and US until 1936.

The 1967 film version was prohibited in Ireland until 2000.

Joyce's other works include Dubliners (1914) - a series of short stories about his native city - and the novel Finnegans Wake (1939) - written in the stream-of-consciousness style.