I have walked on the Sandymount Strand in this picture, which is about one block from the B & B where I stayed several times. More importantly, this is where Stephen walked in the "Proteus" episode of Ulysses.

Text from the "Proteus" episode.

"The dog's bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back. Dog of my enemy. I just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. TERRIBILIA MEDITANS. A primrose doublet, fortune's knave, smiled on my fear. For that are you pining, the bark of their applause? Pretenders: live their lives. The Bruce's brother, Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin Warbeck, York's false scion, in breeches of silk of whiterose ivory, wonder of a day, and Lambert Simnel, with a tail of nans and sutlers, a scullion crowned. All kings' sons. Paradise of pretenders then and now. He saved men from drowning and you shake at a cur's yelping. But the courtiers who mocked Guido in Or san Michele were in their own house. House of . . . We don't want any of your medieval abstrusiosities. Would you do what he did? A boat would be near, a lifebuoy. NATURLICH, put there for you. Would you or would you not? The man that was drowned nine days ago off Maiden's rock. They are waiting for him now. The truth, spit it out. I would want to. I would try. I am not a strong swimmer. Water cold soft. When I put my face into it in the basin at Clongowes. Can't see! Who's behind me? Out quickly, quickly! Do you see the tide flowing
quickly in on all sides, sheeting the lows of sand quickly, shellcocoacoloured? If I had land under my feet. I want his life still to be his, mine to be mine. A drowning man. His human eyes scream to me out of horror of his death. I ... With him together down ... I could not save her. Waters: bitter death: lost. "

Notes:

The "he" in "He saved men from drowning" is Buck Mulligan.

The Guido reference is from Boccaccio's Decameron. "Guido Cavalcanti, an Italian poet and a friend of Dante, walks from the church of San Michele in Florence to the Church of San Giovanni, where some acquaintances find him brooding among the tombs. They say: "Let us go and plague him (to ally himself with them). "Guido, you refuse to be of our society; but, when you have found out there is no god, what good will it have done?" Guido answers: "Gentlemen, you may use me as you please in your own house." After Guido leaves, his mockers finally understand the nature of Guido's witty rebuke: "Consider, then, these arches are the abode of the dead, and he calls them our house to show us that we . . . are, in comparison with him and other men of letter, worse than dead men." Thus, the word Stephen omits, "House of . . . ," is decay or death."*

Stephen believes that he is a pretender and a coward. He lists several people who were pretenders including Ireland, which is the " Paradise of pretenders " since it supported the Yorkist pretenders to the throne of England in the fifteenth century and the Stuart pretenders from 1688-1745. Then Stephen wonders whether he would save a drowning person. The answer he would try, but fail.

The word " abstrusiosities" which is used only once in Ulysses refers to the Guido story, but it is a word that has also been used to describe some of Joyce's works. The Proteus episode is fascinating, but it is very dense. There is very little action. The reader experiences much of Stephen's interior monologue.

*Ulysses Annotated, Don Gifford

Entrance to 7 Eccles Street at the James Joyce Centre Dublin

This is where Leopold and Molly Bloom live in Ulysses. It is where Bloom begins his day, June 16, 1904, in the "Calypso" episode. It is also where he and Stephen end the day in the "Ithaca" episode at 2 A.M.

Eccles street is mentioned ten times, while 7 Eccles street is mentioned only once in Ulysses. The specific reference to 7 Eccles street in the "The Wandering Rocks," episode is, "A card UNFURNISHED APARTMENTS reappeared on the windowsash of number 7 Eccles street."

Chuck

Another wonderful image of a plaque on O'Connell Street, Dublin from Lonnie Noland. This is for those of us with a sweet tooth. The lines are at the very beginning of "Lestrygonians," as follows:

"Pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school treat. Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His Majesty the King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne sucking red jujubes white."

On the plaque the first line above is linked by an ellipsis
to, "among the warm sweet fumes of Graham Lemon's," which comes a few lines later.

Gifford, with reference to, "Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His Majesty the King," states, "The familiar and somewhat exclusive English licensing (and advertising) formula displayed outside the confectionery store of Lemon & Co., Ltd (called "Graham Lemon's" in Ulysses ) at 49 Sackville (now O'Connell) Street Lower.

Gifford also says "God. Save. Our." is reference to "God Save the King" the unofficial national anthem of Great Britain.

Here is an interesting Lestrygonians site:

http://emsah.uq.edu.au/ulysses/lestrygonians.htm

Chuck

Bloom's Hospitality

This photo is compliments of Lonnie Noland. She took it while she was visiting in Dublin.
-- You're in Dawson street, Mr Bloom said. Molesworth street is opposite. Do you want to cross? There's nothing in the way.
its line and saw again the dyeworks' van drawn up before Drago's.
Where I saw his brillantined hair just when I was. Horse drooping.
Driver in John Long's. Slaking his drouth.
-- There's a van there, Mr Bloom said, but it's not moving. I'll see
you across. Do you want to go to Molesworth street?
guide it forward.
mistrust what you tell them. Pass a common remark.
for him. Have to be spoonfed first. Like a child's hand, his hand.
Like Milly's was. Sensitive. Sizing me up I daresay from my hand.
Wonder if he has a name. Van. Keep his cane clear of the horse's
legs: tired drudge get his doze. That's right. Clear. Behind a bull: in
front of a horse.
Knows I'm a man. Voice.
drawing his cane back, feeling again."

This is the scene in the Lestrygonians episode in which Leopold Bloom helps the blind stripling cross the street. The words on the plaque are a part of the text that follows:

"A blind stripling stood tapping the curbstone with his slender cane.

No tram in sight. Wants to cross.

-- Do you want to cross? Mr Bloom asked.

The blind stripling did not answer. His wallface frowned weakly. He moved his head uncertainly.

The cane moved out trembling to the left. Mr Bloom's eye followed

-- Yes, the stripling answered. South Frederick street.

-- Come, Mr Bloom said.

He touched the thin elbow gently: then took the limp seeing hand to

Say something to him. Better not do the condescending. They

-- The rain kept off.

No answer.

Stains on his coat. Slobbers his food, I suppose. Tastes all different

-- Thanks, sir.

-- Right now? First turn to the left.

The blind stripling tapped the curbstone and went on his way,

------------------

There is actually more text in which Bloom's thoughts are about what it would be like to be blind. This scene demonstrates how much happens in an episode. The episode is about a lot more than a Gorgonzola sandwich and glass of Burgundy that Bloom had at Davy Byrne's pub.

Home Rule is mentioned in Ulysses only three times, but Charles Stewart Parnell who was closely associated with this movement is mentioned a number of times. He was a Protestant landowner who turned the home rule movement, or the Irish Parliamentary Party as it became known, into a major constitutional political force. It came to dominate Irish politics in the late years of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century.

The following, taken from Wikipedia, discusses the Irish Home Rule Movement:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Home_Rule_Movement

Parnell and Kitty O'Shea had an adulterous affair for many years with only a wink and a nod from her husband, Capt. William Henry O'Shea. When Capt. O'Shea brought the divorce suit and the affair was in the open it led to the ruin of Parnell's political career.

Chuck

Sassennach, the designation for the British, is used only twice in Ulysses, first in the Telemachus episode in which Buck Mulligan says with reference to Haines, the British houseguest, "The Sassenach wants his morning rashers." The word, Sassennach is used again in the Cyclops episode when Citizen in discussing the potato famine says, " But the Sassenach tried to starve the nation at home while the land was full of crops that the British hyenas bought and sold in Rio de Janeiro." The Sassennach is one of two powers that rule Ireland, the other power being the Catholic Church.

The British and the Catholic Church represent Usurpers in Ulysses. The signifier, Usurper, is used only once in Ulysses. It is:

"A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea.
Turning the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek
brown head, a seal's, far out on the water, round.
Usurper."

Presumably, the use of the word "Usurper" refers to Buck Mulligan who has the key to Martello Tower in his possession by the end of the first episode. Stephen says:

"He wants that key. It is mine. I paid the rent. Now I eat his
salt bread. Give him the key too. All. He will ask for it. That was in
his eyes."

However, the note for "Usurper" cites the words of Telemachus to his mother's suitors in the Odyssey, and Hamlet's feeling towards his uncle Claudius.

Chuck