Fred from Wyoming knew he had come to the right place. "I asked everybody around town what this Ulysses thing is and they all referred me to you," he told Senator David Norris.
Resplendent for the day in a straw boater, blue and white striped jacket, white trousers and a cane, Senator Norris held court on the steps of the James Joyce Centre on North Great George's Street in Dublin as he had done for every Bloomsday since it opened to the public in 1996.
International interest in the day made immortal in Joyce's masterpiece remained as keen as ever. A film crew from Seville asked him what all the fuss was about. "Ulysses is an insidious book - once you start, you can't stop," he told them, a statement that will puzzle all those who tried without success to finish the book.
"Joyce was essentially a musician, and thanks to his genius we can hear exactly what a wave on Sandymount strand sounded like on June 16th, 1904," he explained, before demonstrating.
Forty-six people read passages from the book and by mid-morning the crowd outside the centre had swelled to several hundred. Senator Norris rattled off the famous opening passage which begins: "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather" without pausing for breath.
He was followed by the Japanese ambassador, Keiichi Hayashi, reading in his native language, one of 19 ambassadors to perform such a function on Saturday.
RTÉ presenter Joe Duffy read the passage which depicted the fight in Barney Kiernan's pub and prefaced his reading by paying tribute to the architect Sam Stephenson, who was a keen Joycean and a supporter of Bloomsday.
Caroline Stephenson, widow of Sam, read from the book as did the entertainer and television presenter Linda Martin. Her extract from the Penelope chapter included a reference to a "Louis J Walsh, Magherafelt".
Saturday's readings were the culmination of a week-long celebration of Joyce's most famous work, the longest festival there has been.
"The reaction was beyond our wildest expectations," said Laura Barnes, director of the James Joyce Centre. "There is a huge appetite for performances related to Joyce's work."
