Writerly Joyce this year took advantage of the national treasure of the State Library of Victoria, which, on the original Bloomsday, 16 June 1904, was a surprisingly Irish institution. Justice Redmond Barry, one of its key founders, is better known for having had Ned Kelly hanged, and notorious in the Irish community for doing so, but it is often forgotten that he took a personal interest in what was on the shelves of the library, himself unpacking and shelving the books he ordered. In 1904, the SLV had one of the finest collections of Irish works outside Dublin, and it boasts a first edition of Ulysses, a banned book in 1922. Bloomsday in Melbourne honoured that heritage by leading patrons through the magnificent refurbished Domed Reading Room in a scandalous processional which would have had Justice Barry turning in his grave.

This year’s evening gala featured the most writerly chapter in a writerly book — Oxen of the Sun (8pm at the State Library).

In it, Joyce systematically works through the history of literature, weaving more than sixty literary styles into his own narrative of birth and linguistic evolution and devolution, while a group of drunken medical students carouse, and Mina Purefoy labours to deliver her 13th child.

Late afternoon, distinguished novelists Carmel Bird, Rodney Hall and Michael Meehan (4pm at The Celtic Club, Queen St) discussed how as writers they have negotiated the legacy of Joyce, sometimes inhibited by it, or needing to circumnavigate it, but inevitably acknowledging its monumentality.

During dinner, Bloomsday in Melbourne’s very own chat-show host, ‘Terry Dinger’ (5.30pm at The Celtic Club), interrogated Leopold Bloom who seemed to be pursuing his habit of erotic postal correspondence — 2003-style.