Author of Ulysses (1922), the ultimate celebration of his
native city, James Joyce - who spent most of his adult life
in voluntary exile from Ireland - was born in 1882. After an
impoverished childhood, he went to University College, a place of
learning then staffed by Jesuit priests, where he led a dissolute
life and began to experiment with writing short pieces of prose
which he called "epiphanies". In 1904 he started writing the short
stories that were eventually published as Dubliners . On
June 10 of that year, Joyce met Nora Barnacle, and, on their next
meeting, June 16, he fell in love with her; it's on this day that
the entire epic narrative of Ulysses is set. They finally
got married some 27 years later.
With the exception of two brief visits to Dublin in 1909, when
he attempted to set up a chain of cinemas, and a final visit in
1912, Joyce never again lived in Ireland. All the great works,
including A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and
his late masterpiece, Finnegans Wake (1939), were written in
various European cities - Zurich, Paris, Trieste - where Joyce and
his family eked out a penurious existence supported mostly by
donations from rich patrons. At the time of Joyce's death in 1941,
Ulysses was banned in Ireland, condemned as a pornographic
book; it wasn't published in the Republic until the 1960s.
Joyce once remarked that he was "more interested in the street
names of Dublin than in the riddle of the universe", and boasted
that Dublin could be rebuilt from scratch using the information
contained in his books. The Bloomsday pilgrimage, held every
year on June 16, draws people from all over the world to meet in
Dublin where they retrace the action of the novel. It starts at the
Martello Tower at Sandycove
and progresses through the streets of Dublin, stopping at Davy
Byrne's pub
where Leopold Bloom's lunch of a glass of burgundy and a
gorgonzola-and-mustard sandwich is served, followed by the National
Library, the Ormonde Hotel (Ormond Quay, north Dublin) and
all the other locations made iconic by this great novel.
For serious Joyceans, the James Joyce Centre at 35 North
Great Georges St (Tues-Sat 10am-4.30pm, Sun noon-4.30pm; tel 873
1984; £2/€2.54), not far from the Irish Writers' Centre, has a
museum with documents of his life and work, and an excellent
bookshop. The centre also has information on lectures, walking
tours, and Bloomsday events.