Stephen Dedalus’s Dublin

Historic Dublin image taken from page 24 of The Dictionary of Dublin, being a comprehensive guide to the city and its neighbourhood by Ephraim Macdowel Cosgrave. Dublin 1895. Source: The British Library Commons

“Dublin was a new and complex sensation… In the beginning he contented himself with circling timidly round the neighbouring square or, at most, going half way down one of the side streets but when he had made a skeleton map of the city in his mind he followed boldly one of its central lines until he reached the customhouse…” – Chapter 2, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Dublin city map taken from The Sunny Side of Ireland: How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway, by John O’Mahony, 1898. Source: Flickr Commons.

Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man draws you in to the architectural and commercial history of Dublin city. This map captures the central locations described in Joyce’s novel and endeavours to plot Stephen Dedalus’s journey of self-discovery around Dublin city and its environs onto a contemporary map. Many of the key buildings referenced in the text still stand in their original locations today.

Locations in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Resources:

Don Gifford, Joyce Annotated: Notes for Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Berkeley: California University Press, 1982.

Vivien Igoe, James Joyce’s Dublin Houses and Nora Barnacle’s Galway. Lilliput Press: Dublin, 2007.

 

 

Save

Save

Save