Joyceans don ceremonial blazers and take to the streets to celebrate Irish literature's patron saint

Only mad dogs and Joyceans go out in the midday sun, and it was so muggy in central Dublin yesterday that many of the dogs took the afternoon off.

But June 16th is a holy day of obligation for devotees of Irish literature's patron saint. So, despite the temperatures, orthodox Joyceans donned their ceremonial blazers and petticoats as usual and ignored the scornful looks of non-believers as they went about the annual ritual of re-enacting scenes from the holy book.

It's no coincidence that the manuscript of Ulysses is on display at the Chester Beatty Library, where it shares gallery space with priceless copies of the Koran. And although Joyceans may be split between fundamentalism and a popularising tendency (led by Ayatollah David Norris), they all share a passion for bringing the word to the streets.

Unlike most religious celebrations, however, Bloomsday encourages indulgence. It started as always with high-calorie breakfasts, 600 of which were eaten at the James Joyce Centre in North Great Georges Street, where the Taoiseach (who, in his own way, like Joyce, has stretched the boundaries of the English language) was guest of honour.

Then it was on to the streets, where the Balloonatics theatre group again dominated proceedings, following Bloom's footsteps around what Joyce called "the heart of the Hibernian metropolis" (so clogged with traffic these days, it needs a triple bypass).

Luckily, the Ulysses tour is essentially a walking one, or no one would do it in a day, especially with all the stops for eating and drinking.

At Davy Byrne's pub, the many revellers consuming oysters and Burgundy spilled out on to Duke Street in the glorious weather.

But, in a comment on the particular nature of the Bloomsday celebration, few of them were venturing as far as the premises of Cathach Books, just a few doors away.

Temperatures were a lot lower there, particularly in the window, where a first-edition Ulysses was on sale for a cool £14,500. A different, re-bound copy was also on display, although it had already been sold for £8,000. June 16th doesn't mean much at this end of the market, the proprietor admitted, "but the pub's doing well".