White Rock is set to hold its first ever Bloomsday this Saturday in honour of James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses.

The annual event - celebrated by Irish folk worldwide - retraces the steps of the main character, Leopold Bloom, in one's own city to the exact date of the character's adventure in the book.

"He just took a day in the life of Dublin and he made all the events and the normal things that people do all happen on the day of June 16, 1904," said Ray Fynes, an Irish-born and educated retiree who's heading up the White Rock Bloomsday.

Bloomsday, named after the book's main character Leopold Bloom, was started on June 16, 1954, 50 years to the day of when Bloom started his adventure.

"When we retired, we thought it'd be cool to organize a Bloomsday," said Fynes. "White Rock has got a lot of the same attributes as Dublin."

This Saturday's Bloomsday will start with a reading at the White Rock Library at 11: 30 a.m. and move to Jimmy Flynn's Celtic Snug at 1 p.m. for a cheese and mustard sandwich.

After that, the group will attend a reading of chapter 10 at the White Rock Museum & Archives at 3 p.m., followed by a dinner of bangers and mash with a burgundy jus at Slainté by the Pier.

"The difficulty with Joyce's menu is he ate a lot of strange stuff," said Jack Sixsmith of Slainté by the Pier. "He ate a lot of liver and kidneys and stuff like that, which you can put on the menu for nostalgia, just nobody's going to eat it."

Fynes hopes that this Bloomsday will catch on for years to come.

"I'm hoping that if it's wellsupported, well-attended that it would develop a life of its own," Fynes said.

Sixsmith said White Rock is the perfect location for it

"We're hoping it will build over the years," he said.