ISI and James Joyce’s Dublin II

In our last post in this series, we suggested that if you’re a James Joyce fan and are planning on travelling to Dublin to work and study, do some teacher training, or simply soak up the vibrant atmosphere of this UNESCO City of Literature, you might want to make ISI Dublin your first port of call. Why? Well, because of all the myriad locations of this city connected to Joyce’s works, ISI Dublin’s Meeting House Lane campus is housed in the last remaining building of Saint Mary’s Abbey (1139 CE), whose Chapter House features in Ulysses (1922 CE) as “the most historic spot in all Dublin.” From here, we mentioned, it is just a short walk to Middle Abbey Street and the former offices of the Evening Telegraph, fictional employers of Ulysses’ principal protagonist, Leopold Bloom. We then suggested that in following the first in a series of bronze pavement plaques, you could trace Bloom’s midday route through Dublin — creating a mini-Bloomsday all of your own! But what if you wanted to take a diversion, personalising the route? Well, that’s what we’re here to find out!

While in Dublin, . . . don’t look up! Look down. No, no, no, . . . in all seriousness, please do look up, but don’t miss out on the series of 14 bronze plaques that were installed in Dublin’s pavements in an homage to James Joyce’s Ulysses in 1988. (Incidentally, and Joyce would enjoy the numerology, in 1999, Ulysses was ranked 1st on the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best English-language books of the 20th century.) These plaques, each with a quotation corresponding to the spot in which it is placed as it features in the Aeolus episode of Ulysses, allow you to walk in the footsteps of Leopold Bloom, the novel’s principal protagonist. More specifically, these plaques enable you to follow Bloom’s midday route as he traverses the city of Dublin on June 16 1904. They commence at Middle Abbey Street and conclude at the National Library, near Trinity College. But, what, as mentioned, if you want to personalise the route — perhaps not limiting it to the Aeolus episode, but taking in Lotus Eaters too!

Well, departing from the prescribed route on Westmoreland Street— underneath the roguish-fingered figure of Thomas Moore, pictured above — one option is that you can head for Sweny’s pharmacy on Lincoln Place. Interestingly, though no longer a pharmacy, as such (now a Joycean Museum), Sweny’s is the only building in Dublin that retains the Edwardian interior that Joyce’s fictionalised character would have encountered in 1904. In the Lotus Eaters episode of Ulysses, Leopold Bloom leaves his friend Paddy Dignam’s funeral mass at All Hallows Church (St Andrew’s in the novel) and makes his way southward to the top of Westmoreland Row, Lincoln Place. His purpose — to visit Sweny’s pharmacy and order a skin lotion for his wife, Molly. Famously, while there, he purchases a bar of lemon soap, which he carries around with him all day, and which we hear about every now and then. In fact, this bar of lemon soap becomes something of a leitmotif in Ulysses, culminating in the Circe episode’s rendition of the following ditty, when the anthropomorphized soap, having come to life, sings:

We’re a capital couple are Bloom and I./ He brightens the earth. I polish the sky.

This little bar of lemon soap has become the focus of numerous examinations of aspects of Joyce’s writing, which include, but are not limited to advertising, domesticity, consumer culture, and imperialism.

Since Ulysses’ publication in 1922, Sweny’s pharmacy has become a volunteer-run bookshop, I suppose, for want of a better word. In truth, it stocks all sorts of Joycean ephemera and hosts numerous Joycean events throughout the year, as well as — yes, you heard it here first — selling bars of that luscious lemon soap (though for more than Bloom’s fourpence (U 5.511))! For roughly 5e at the time of writing, Joyce fans from all over the world can visit Sweny’s and buy bars of this savant-laden “sweet lemony wax” for themselves. . . .

So, what do you think of this prospective detour? We have other suggestions, other options for all you Joycean enthusiasts out there to explore. For instance, from beneath Thomas Moore’s “roguish finger,” you could make your way back towards ISI Dublin’s Meeting House Lane campus, and from here to the house of “The Dead” on Ushers Island? Lots of choices, as previously mentioned. Let’s check these out together in the next of this series of blog posts exploring ISI and James Joyce’s Dublin!