Bloomsday (16 June)

"This day celebrates the life and writing of Irish author James Joyce (1882-1941), chiefly be retracing the route through Dublin taken by Leonard* Bloom, the central character in _Ulysses_....the action of the novel takes place entirely on a single day: 16 June 1904, which was also the day Joyce first went out with Nora Barnacle, whom he later married."
*That's _Leopold_ Bloom! Two gaffes in two days! This book needed an editor.
Bloomsday is a real thing. A few years ago I went to a Bloomsday celebration at a local "Irish pub" called the Dogs Bollix. Some professional readings, some amateur singings, and lots of drinkings. Good fun.
When I briefly visited Pula, Croatia (at the southern tip of Istria) in 2009, I was surprised to see a life-size image* of JJ, seated at a table outside a local cafe. I knew he had lived in Trieste (which is not far away); but before that, for a few months 1904-5, he had a job in Pula (then called Pola), teaching English at the Berlitz School, mainly to Austro-Hungarian naval officers.
*I wanted to say "statue", but is it a statue if it's sitting? Sitting on a horse, OK, but sitting at a table, drinking coffee?
"While he was in Pola he organised the local printing of his broadsheet The Holy Office, which satirised both William Butler Yeats and George William Russell,"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pula