Over 500 people rose early to attend the first ever Bloomsday Breakfast in Bryant Park, in New York City today. Couples dressed in Edwardian dress waltzed to period music followed by six readings from the most beloved James Joyce masterpiece “Ulysses”.

The event, presented by Culture Ireland and the Irish Arts Center, was part of the international celebration of the beloved novel.

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Music, on the Upper Terrace of the park, was provided by the Dublin-based group Songs of Joyce while actors, politicians and those working in the arts read from “Ulysses”. The guest readers included Fionnula Flanagan, James Newman, Charlotte Moore, Terry George, Michael Noonan, Isaiah Sheffer and Aedin Moloney.

During the event it was announced that the Irish Government were donating 100 special-edition copies of James Joyce’s “Ulysses” to New York Public Libraries.

The Bloomsday Breakfast was just one of several hundred events in "Imagine Ireland", Culture Ireland’s year of Irish arts in America.

Here’s some footage of the event: