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James Joyce's Dublin from the air

This page, like my VR tour, uses images of Dublin from another site, adding a commentary from a Joycean's point-of-view.

Ken Finlay's Dublin-history site offers 40 aerial photos of Dublin in the early 1980s: [main page]

I suggest you use multiple windows for convenience.

Holles Street Maternity Hospital

[783 by 1227]

When you load this image, the maternity hospital should be near the middle of your screen, at the northeast corner of a park (Merrion Square). It's a large building with a white peak (inverted-V) at the top.

Holles street runs north-south along its left side, which is where Bloom enters at the start of chapter 14 of Ulysses [Oxen] and where they all leave, near the end [Oxen] heading north to Burke's (on the opposite side of the street at the far noth of the block). (Bloom and Molly were living on Holles street when Rudy was born, at the lowest point in Bloom's career, and this was where Ben Dollard came to them, to get the ill-fitting suit he sang in.)

At the very end of Oxen, Stephen and Lynch (followed by Bloom) turn back a little south and then west down an alley in the middle of the block, called Denzille Lane, heading for the train station. (The train tracks run the full width of the picture, two blocks north of the hospital.)

The train station, called Westland Row in 1904 but Pearse Station now, is indistinctly visible at the far left end of the tracks. This is not only where Mulligan and Stephen fight (between ch14 and ch15), but the postoffice downstairs is also where Bloom picked up Martha's letter in chapter 5.

When ch5 opens Bloom is just to the left of that tower/silo thing, on Sir John Rogerson's Quay. [Lotus] He heads south towrds us one block, then west two blocks, and south again to the PO, then after getting the letter he reads it in the alley behind the station (east or right in the photo) and then slips into All Hallow's, which may just be visible south of (below) the tracks in the photo.

He then heads another block south, off the left edge of the pic, to Sweny's. If you follow the left side of the photo down to the east-west street one block south of Merrion Square, that's Baggot Street, where Corley gets the half-sovereign from his servant-friend in "Two Gallants". [Gallants]

And a little off the upper right corner is where the boys in "An Encounter" cross on the ferry. [Encounter] (This view looking east shows the Pigeonhouse in the distance, I think.)

National Library

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Westland Row station is more clearly visible in the upper right of this photo. The south end of this block is Lincoln Place, with Sweny's and the baths. Finn's Hotel (and the offices of the Irish Homestead) are a little west on Leinster street, which next turns into Nassau Street (where JAJ met Nora). What looks like a pond was Trinity's bicycle track according to my maps.

The north-south street below the 'pond' is Kildare Street, where Bloom has to swerve to avoid Boylan as he heads to the Library and Museum. [Lestryg] (Bloom has just come along Molesworth Street (east-west, ending between the Library's circular roof and the Museum's circular roof).

Boylan may turn west onto Molesworth on his way to Pohlman's (on Dawson, just off the lefthand edge) to rent a piano for Molly.

The Shelbourne Hotel at the bottom left is where Corley has his rendezvous in "Two Gallants". [map]

Just below the bottom-right is Ely Place where AE and Yeats had a mystical commune in the 1890s, and where George Moore lived in the 1900s, and where Gogarty lived from 1907 on.

North from Ely along Merrion Street are the Duke's Lawn and the National Gallery.

There's a shot of Stephen's Green that just shows the middle area, and no special Joycean landmarks. University College is off the bottom towards the left.

Grafton Street

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The next shot shows Grafton Street with Davy Byrne's to the right (Bloom's lunch: Lestryg), Thornton's florist (Boylan's basket: WRocks), the Gaiety Theatre, and the Wolfe Tone memorial.

Across Grafton (left) from Byrne's was the XL Cafe where Joyce appeared in Maggie Sheehy's play in 1900.

Bank of Ireland

[1216 by 788]

This interesting angle shows Grafton Street from farther west, looking across the Liffey as well to include the Freeman's Journal offices where ch7 takes place. [Eolus]

The DBC is at the far left and Davy Byrne's off the lower right. Patsy Dignam dawdles thru the lower area on his way home from the butcher's. [WRocks]

Trinity College

[789 by 1230]

This shot looks east over Trinity, with Westland Row station at the top left and the Antient Concert Rooms just northwest of the station across Great Brunswick Street. The funeral cortege comes down this street from the top of the picture. [Hades]

At the bottom are the Bank of Ireland, a post office across the street from which Stephen may have sent the 'sentimentalist' telegram, and that letter 'Y' is Yeates and Sons on the corner of Nassau where this old pic was taken.

This view shows Trinity from the north, with the Tom Moore statue visible in the triangle toward the bottom right. (In this one Tom Moore is slightly hidden.) Bloom walks up this way in ch8 [Lestryg]

Merchant's Arch

[1092 by 768]

The angle shifts to looking southwest from north of the Liffey. This first shot shows the Metal Bridge that Dilly crosses after getting her 14p from Simon [WRocks] to Merchant's Arch where Bloom looks at books [WRocks] and where Stephen is wandering from the far left corner [WRocks]. Lenehan and M'Coy wander around the upper area [WRocks] and Cunningham and Power start from the Castle at the very top [WRocks]. The DBC where Mulligan and Haines gorge themselves was behind the tall new building. [WRocks]

A less useful shot further west shows Bloom's approach-path to the Ormond Hotel at the start of Sirens along Wellington Quay after leaving the bookshop.

Ormond Hotel

[783 by 1236]

The next vertiginous angle shows the Ormond Hotel [Sirens] and Mary's Abbey [WRocks]. Barney Kiernan's [Cyclops] is just off the lower right edge.

Adam and Eve's Church and the Four Courts are also visible.

This shot north of the Four Courts shows (I think, right in the middle) the Capuchin church where Joyce confessed after the 1896 hellfire retreat

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Ulysses:
chapters: summary : anchors : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12a 12b 13 14a 14b 15a 15b 15c 15d 16a 16b 17a 17b 18a 18b
notes: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
reference: Bloom : clocktime : prices : schemata : Tower : riddles : errors : Homeric parallels : [B-L Odyssey] : Eolus tropes : parable : Oxen : Circe : 1904 : Thom's : Gold Cup : Seaside Girls : M'appari : acatalectic : search
riddles: overview : Rudy : condom : Gerty : Hades : Strand : murder : Eccles
maps: Ulysses : WRocks : Strand : VR tour : aerial tour : Dublin : Leinster : Ireland : Europe
editing: etexts : lapses : Gabler : capitals : commas : compounds : deletes : punct : typists
drafts: prequel : Proteus : Cyclops : Circe
closereadings: notes : Oxen : Circe

Finnegans Wake:
txt: [I.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 II.1 2 3 4 III.1 2 3 4 IV] : [HTML]
shorter: main : I.1-4 : 5-8 : II.1-2 : 3-4 : III.1-2 : 3 : 4 : IV
reference: thunder : Quinet : waves : [MP3 ALP] : FrALP : ItalALP : ch4 digest : Finn's Hotel : JAJquotes : search
drafts: NewGame : ROC : Kev : B&P : T&I : HCE : Mmlj : Cad : Rev : Pacata
closereadings: notes : ROC : T&S : Kev : B&P : T&I : HCE : Mmlj : Cad
theory: AI : archetypes : WakeOS : notes : origin : Scribble

Portrait:
ref: main : ch1 : ch1 notes : ch2 : 3 : 4 : 5a : 5b : Pinamonti : [notes] : [Cave] : [Gabler]

SHero: outline : quotes : PoA04

Dubliners:
etexts: Sis : Sis04 : Sis05 : Enc : Araby : Evel : After : 2Gall : Board : LitCl : Cntr : Clay : Pain : Ivy : Moth : Grace : Dead
guides: main : [Cave] : [Peng]

Other:
Exiles: Ex1 : 2 : 3

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