The most important places which testify the role of James Joyce in Dublin are all recollected in the events and celebrations of Bloomsday.

Bloomsday is a commemoration observed annually on 16 June in Dublin and elsewhere to celebrate the life of the Irish writer and relive the events in his novel “Ulysses”, all of which took place on the same day in Dublin in 1904. The day is a secular holiday in Ireland. The name derives from Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses, and 16 June was the date of Joyce's first outing with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, when they walked to the Dublin village of Ringsend.

These are the main points of a Joycean walk in Dublin: - James Joyce Center - James Joyce Tower - Davy’s Byrnes pub - The Dublin Writers Museum

Joyce’s Dublin

The James Joyce CenterThe James Joyce Centre is located on North Great George's Street around the corner from O'Connell Street in a beautifully restored 18th century townhouse.This house was built in 1784 by Francis Ryan for Valentine Brown, the Earl of Kenmare, who used it as his townhouse. The plasterwork here was done by Michael Stapleton, one of the finest stuccadores of the time. The house was given special mention by Constantine Curran in his book Dublin Decorative Plasterwork of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, and the photographs he took were essential to the restoration of the house. Curran was also a close friend of Joyce’s. In the eighteenth century this area of Dublin was very fashionable but it fell into decline in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By 1982 twelve houses on this street had been demolished by the City Council as dangerous buildings, including the house next door. Number 35 was saved by Senator David Norris, a Joycean scholar who also lives on the street. With the help of many others and with funding from a variety of sources the work was completed and the Centre opened in June 1996. The Centre has been run for ten years by members of the Monaghan family, descendents of Joyce’s sister May. Though Joyce never lived in this house, he has a connection with it through Prof. Denis J. Maginni who ran a Dance Academy here. Originally his name was Maginn, but he added an extra ‘i’ to make it more Italian sounding in keeping with his exotic profession. Maginni was a well-known and colourful character in Dublin and appears several times in James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Joyce’s Dublin

…The James Joyce CenterIn the ‘Wandering Rocks’ episode he is described as wearing a “silk hat, slate frockcoat with silk facings, white kerchief tie, tight lavender trousers, canary gloves and pointed patent boots.” The Maginni Room, now the Café Ulysses, was originally the dining room of the house. The plasterwork is original, though the dancing figures in the medallions date from Maginni’s time. Though damaged, the plasterwork was mainly preserved under layers of paint and dirt.The Guinness LibraryThe Library contains many translations of Joyce’s works, volumes about Joyce and his work, and other books of interest to Joyceans. Visitors are welcome to browse the shelves, and to sit and read.The Kenmare Room is named in honour of the Earl of Kenmare whose townhouse this was when it was built in 1784. The plasterwork had disappeared completely by 1982 and was restored using photographs taken by Joyce’s friend, Constantine Curran. The ‘Charioteer with Winged Horses’ that you see here is also found in the library at Belvedere College and was a favourite theme of Michael Stapleton, the stuccadore. (Joyce studied at home and briefly at the Christian Brothers school on North Richmond Street, Dublin, then he was offered a place in the Jesuits' Dublin school, Belvedere College, in 1893. The offer was made at least partly in the hope that he would prove to have a vocation and join the Order. Belvedere College is a private secondary school for boys located on Great Denmark Street. The College was founded in 1832 and celebrated its sesquicentenary (150th anniversary) in 1982. The school currently has in excess of 850 pupils enrolled and has a number of famous alumni in the world of the arts, politics, sport, science and business). On the walls here are reproductions of portraits of members of Joyce’s family.

Joyce’s Dublin

…The James Joyce Center

His mother May Murray (sketched from photographs by her great grandson Declan Joyce); his father John Stanislaus Joyce (this portrait commissioned by Joyce himself from the Irish portrait artist Patrick Tuohy in 1923, the year after Ulysses was published).The Joyce family lived in houses similar to this one, though not in this one, and on the table in the Library is a folder with a list of Joyce’s Dublin addresses with photographs and details. Two portraits of Joyce hang in the Library, one by Jacques Emile Blanche, and one by Irish artist Harry Kernoff. (These are copies, the originals being part of the Poetry and Rare Books Collection at the State University of New York at Buffalo).Back on the ground floor, if you continue outside to the yard, you will see the original door from No. 7 Eccles Street. In Ulysses this is Leopold Bloom’s address, but the house itself was demolished to make way for an extension to the Mater Hospital, though the door was saved and is on loan to us.

Joyce’s Dublin

The James Joyce Tower

The Joyce Tower in Sandycove is famous as the setting for the opening of James Joyce’s Ulysses, now acclaimed as the greatest and most influential novel of the twentieth century. One of a series of Martello Towers built around Dublin in 1804 to withstand an invasion by Napoleon, it was opened in 1962 as a museum devoted to the life and works of James Joyce, who is known worldwide as the writer most closely associated with his native Dublin.Dramatically located on a cliff-top overlooking the sea, the tower stands eight miles south of Dublin on the coast road. It clearly impressed Joyce, whose brief stay here in 1904 inspired the opening of Ulysses.Objects in the museum bring Joyce and his works vividly to life. The collection includes letters, photographs, portraits and personal possessions of Joyce, some of them given by close friends such as Samuel Beckett, Maria Jolas, Sylvia Beach and Paul Ruggiero - his tie and wallet, his cabin trunk, guitar and cane are among these. There are first and rare editions of his work, including his early broadsides and the celebrated edition of Ulysses illustrated by Henri Matisse. Items such as the original key of the Tower, a Clongowes pandybat, a Plumtree’s pot and photographs of ‘Throwaway’ and Davy Stephens are examples of the real and ordinary which Joyce transformed into the material of myth

Joyce’s Dublin

Davy’s Byrnes Pub

The literary giant with which Davy Byrnes is synonymous is of course James Joyce. A regular visitor to the premises Joyce developed a special relationship with the warm but abstemious proprietor. Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’ has mention of Davy Byrnes, but the Joycean character with which the premises are most associated is Leopold Bloom, of ‘Ulysses’:“He entered Davy Byrnes. Moral pub. He doesn’t chat, stands a drink now and then. But in a leap year once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.”Inside Bloom meets his friend Nosey Flynn who engages Davy Byrne in chat and Bloom partakes of his famous “gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of Burgundy.” Nosey Flynn then asks Davy Byrne for a tip for the Ascot Gold Cup, to which the proprietor retorts:“I’m off that Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne answered. I never put anything on a horse.”Since ‘Ulysses’ publication in 1922 there has been a constant literary pilgrimage to Davy Byrnes. The recent revival of Bloomsday, 16th June, has seen a wide literary and international tourist audience attracted to the premises who wish to savour, like Leopold Bloom, a gorgonzola sandwich and glass of burgundy.

Joyce’s Dublin

The Dublin Writers Museum

Housed in a restored Georgian mansion in Parnell Square, the design of the building alone is enough reason to visit. The notable plasterwork in the first floor gallery of writers attracts almost as many visitors who are interested in design as the museum attracts those with an interest in literature. The Dublin Writers Museum was established to promote interest, through its collection, displays and activities, in Irish literature as a whole and in the lives and works of individual Irish writers. All of the writers featured in the Dublin Writers Museum are those who have made an important contribution to Irish or international literature or to the literature of Dublin. The museum strives to give a view of Irish literature from a Dublin perspective. Visitors to the Irish Writers Museum are allowed to view several of the personal possessions of Dublin’s most famous writers and can take in several magnificent portraits of these literary giants.

Joyce’s Dublin