Liverpool is referenced explicitly in one story and implicitly in another. In “A Boarding House,” it is the origin of “tourists” who float through Mrs. Mooney’s establishment:
“Mrs Mooney, who had taken what remained of her money out of the butcher business and set up a boarding house in Hardwicke Street, was a big imposing […]
Note: The following text is that of the author’s presentation at the XXV James Joyce Symposium held in London in June 2016. The original, shorter London entry can be found here.
Across the Water:
Economic and Political Implications of the Dubliners London References
Dubliners, the work through which Joyce initially sought to […]
The Isle of Man is an island located in the Irish Sea between Ireland on the west and England and Scotland on the east. Like Ireland, it has Celtic and Gaelic origins and its government was influenced by Viking conquests. The Isle of Man boasts the “oldest continuous parliament in the world.” One […]
Sharing a name with the famous London locale, Fleet Street in Dublin is a busy pathway just south of the Liffey connecting Westmoreland Road with the bustling Temple Bar (another name echoing the London scene) district. In Dubliners the street appears in one story, only briefly, in reference to a character’s job and in another as […]
Referenced in six stories, London consistently carries connotations of economic dependence or opportunity for the Dubliners who were, at the dawn of the twentieth century, experiencing rather dismal prospects in the marketplace. In fact, much of the paralysis depicted in the collection stems from characters’ vocational or financial challenges. As Continue Reading →
The location of Mrs. Mooney’s boarding, Hardwicke Street, is a small lane that, in Joyce’s Dublin days, was lined with tenements and middle-class residences. At the end of the street looms St. George’s, the bells of which Mrs. Mooney hears pealing as she plots her confrontation with Bob Doran in “The Boarding House.” (The Blooms can […]
Not to be confused with the modern-day Spring Garden Street just south of the Liffey and George’s Quay, Spring Gardens, as it is referenced in “The Boarding House,” was an area well north of the Liffey, between the royal Canal and the River Tolka. Today, as Spring Garden Lane, it appears in the satellite view […]
St. George’s Church appears in “The Boarding House” through the sound of its bells pealing. The sound marks the time (just after 11 on a Sunday morning) as well as the location of the boarding house where Mrs. Mooney sits conspiring to collect her “reparations” from Bob Doran who has been carrying on an affair […]
This week’s featured place is Marlborough Street, where Mrs. Mooney of “The Boarding House” plans to attend mass after her confrontation with Bob Doran: “It was seventeen minutes past eleven: she would have lots of time to have the matter out with Mr. Doran and then catch short twelve at Marlborough Street” (64). “Short twelve” […]
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