Galway: "My dear little runaway Nora..." James Joyce was sitting at the kitchen table in Nora Barnacle's small family home in Galway when he wrote these words in 1909, having ventured a little nervously down into Bowling Green to meet his mother-in-law.
Yesterday the letter was chosen as one of 100 readings in the restored Barnacle home to mark the year, and the day, that was in it.
Ms Sheila O'Donnellan, director of the Lady Gregory Autumn Gathering, said that she was delighted to have selected it as her contribution for the gathering.
Among her audience during her intervention was Nora's niece, Ms Patricia Barnacle Hutton, and grandnephew, Alex, who had travelled from England for the event.
In fact Ms Barnacle Hutton had an early start. She was roused in her hotel by sisters Sheila and Mary Gallagher, who were instrumental in rescuing the Barnacle house for Galway 16 years ago, and both she and her son were taken to Galway city centre to open the day-long readings at 8 a.m.
The opening lines of Ulysses had been specially reserved for Nora's niece - "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed..." Her son read from the "fireworks scene".
"It is just wonderful to be here," Ms Barnacle Hutton said afterwards. She has visited the Barnacle house twice, but had never been there on Bloomsday.
Her father, Tom, was one of Nora's two brothers, and both he and Nora were among seven children raised in the tiny house by Annie Barnacle, when she separated from her husband, Thomas, a baker.
Young Tom emigrated to England, married and was seriously injured while serving with the Connaught Rangers in the first World War.
Ms Barnacle Hutton has close links with the surviving Joyce family, having met Stephen, the writer's grandson, for the first time at the funeral of his aunt, Lucia, in Northampton.
She said she does not agree with his litigious approach towards the use of Joyce material, but is sympathetic to his concern about access to private letters and personal artefacts.
Significantly, copyright was not an issue for Ms Barnacle Hutton, for her son, or for any of the people who dropped in to read their chosen passages from Joyce at various stages yesterday in Bowling Green.
The Gallagher sisters had the support of the Joyce Estate for the free public readings - one to mark each of the 100 years since Bloomsday. As the Gallagher sisters emphasise, the Barnacle house was the only establishment to have this authorisation.
Over 100 cyclists from around the country took part in the 10th annual Bloomsday Messenger Bike Rally in Dublin yesterday, writes Helen O'Neill.
Dressed in colourful costumes and traditional Joycean attire, they cycled around the city on old-style bicycles.
The event was organised by The Irish Youth Foundation, which hoped to raise €100,000 to go to projects for disadvantaged children and young people around the State.
