Dublin & James Joyce

My hotel was down on Sir John Rogerson's Quay, so walking to and from there took me right through Bloom walking territory and I took in quite a few of the streets, Lombard Street East, Lime Street, Hanover Street East but it was Eccles Street I really wanted to see, even given that No7  is long gone.

Hopefully this gives you the general gist

The Writer's Museum just along the way in Parnell Square was well worth the visit if only to lay eyes on one of 'these'

and capture in my mind's eye that unique shade of blue-green for fabric purposes, it's all begging for something to be made. A first edition of Ulysses, but of course plenty more to see here as well on other famous Irish writers, why hadn't I realised that Bram Stoker of Dracula fame was Irish,  and an intriguing group painting of them all... imagine finding all these in the same room.

Joyce, Yeats, Shaw, Wilde, Beckett, Behan et al.
The lunch was good and my feet said thank you for the rest.
Next just a short walk to pay homage to the Eccles Street front door, as previously mentioned, now the property of M&S but on display at the James Joyce Centre.

Time also to take in the Joyce exhibition and more of my favoured mock-ups of original settings, and all very accessible, no roped off areas.


I find the whole idea of death masks both macabre but also quite intriguing, a sort of purge for my inquisitive nature. Being able to look on that face as it really was all these years later stirs up strange emotions and so I gazed for quite some time at James Joyce.

As I've said before this week, strange and ongoing things are still happening in my mind with regard to that reading of Ulysses. Not only do I want to read around it and dip into it again, but I now realise it wasn't just a box to be ticked, a book that had to be read. It's infiltrated at a much deeper level than I would have thought possible, all much enhanced by a walk around Dublin of course.
But time is moving swiftly on and I've now eaten into the three hours that I had been advised to allow for the trip out to Sandymount and the Martello Tower, so I opted instead to stick with Dublin city, because with a fair wind and sail I could get on the last tour of the day around the famine ship, the Jeanie Johnston, moored on Custom House Quay alongside Beckett Bridge, and near the hotel and my luggage.
Yes we're off to sea me hearties.