Up to 20,000 people turned up to see Philip Mullen perform last year for the Bloomsday centenary. Yesterday, fewer than 100 attended his Parable of the Plums.
But the actor, who has taken to the streets of Dublin each June 16th since 1982, wasn't complaining. "In a way, it's nice to get back to the hardcore lunatics," he said, sipping a pint of stout outside Davy Byrnes.
"A lot of Joyceans would be afraid of Bloomsday becoming too organised because it started out as a spontaneous event. That's the beauty of it. There are people here on their own little Odyssey."
Among those in the crowd were sisters Angie Moore and Colleen Bee, who were dressed respectively as "one of Norah Barnacle's friends" and "a girl from the Nighttown".
The Derry woman, who had bought her racy costume in a charity shop, admitted she had yet to read Ulysses, although, "I have tried over 15 years."
Her interest in the book had been sparked by a chance encounter with the Joycean actor Paul O'Hanrahan.
"I went to see his show in the Ormond Quay. It was me and my husband in the audience, with a Spanish student who didn't have a clue what was going on."
O'Hanrahan was out again yesterday, playing pied piper to dozens of Ulysses fans from Ireland and overseas.
Listening attentively to a reading outside Harrisons café on Westmoreland Street - now a Chinese take-away - was a seven-strong book group from the Netherlands.
"We started reading Ulysses last September," explained Dick Van Wageringen, a civil court judge. "It is hard. We are only half-way through, and we know the difficult chapters are yet to come."
Others Bloomsday events included a James Joyce tribute gig by Altan at Vicar Street, and a ceremony at AIB Bank Centre at which Northern Ireland novelist Nick Laird picked up the €10,000 Rooney Prize.
But the main focus of celebrations was at the James Joyce Centre on North Great George's Street, which hosted readings, re-enactments and musical performances throughout the day. Funding difficulties, however, led to the cancellation of the centre's traditional Bloomsday breakfast.
Helen Monaghan, Joyce's grandniece who is also director of the centre, said it had to let go its educational officer earlier this year despite the fact that more students were visiting the centre.
It is now in negotiations with the Department of Arts, which said yesterday it had put up emergency funding of €10,000 to examine the centre's financial viability.
Joycean scholar Senator David Norris, chairman of the centre, said "after 25 years, it's not unreasonable to expect official Ireland to step on board and support us".
The sentiment was echoed by many overseas visitors yesterday, among them Daniel Burst, a lecturer in English literature in Wesleyan University, Connecticut.
"The Government should be shamed into thinking Bloomsday happens every year and not just every 100 years," he said.
