Dublin history
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Who were the real people in the Ormond Hotel in “Sirens”?
“Sirens,” the eleventh episode of Ulysses, is memorable for its musical prose, but it also stands out as an episode of revelry in the bar and restaurant of the Ormond Hotel. While Bloom cringes in anguish watching Blazes Boylan jingle-jangle off to meet Molly, the other colorful characters drown their sorrows in booze and song.…
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Ep. 151 – Blind Stripling
A wild Blazes Boylan appears. Topics in this episode include the incredible story of Reverend Thomas Connellan, the Bible Wars, Soupers, the Bird’s Nest orphanage, apostasy and conversion, a typographical error heroically corrected, the blind stripling, whether or not the blind stripling actually wants help from Leopold Bloom, Bloom’s savior complex, Bloom’s empathy, the history…
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Decoding Dedalus: Hamlet, ou le Absentminded Beggar
“The art of James Joyce, like that of Mallarmé, is art preoccupied with method, with how it’s made. Even the sensuality of Ulysses is a symptom of intermediation. It is an hallucinatory delirium – the kind treated by psychiatrists – presented as an end in itself.” – Fernando Pessoa This is a post in a…
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Ep. 130 – THOSE SLIGHTLY RAMBUNCTIOUS FEMALES
Nelson supposes his toeses are roses, but Nelson supposes erroneously. Topics in this episode include Barcelona, revisiting James Joyce’s Guinness ad, the history of Nelson’s pillar, Horatio Nelson, the final resting place of Nelson’s head, possible replacements for Nelson atop the former pillar, failed attempts to raise the wind, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or…
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Ep. 127 – A MAN OF HIGH MORALE
“Speaking about me. What did he say? What did he say? What did he say about me? Don’t ask.” Topics in this episode include a rumor about Stephen, Professor Magennis, Æ the mastermystic, drama within Dublin’s occult circles, how Æ helped James Joyce get published, the opal hush poets, Joycean tarot cards, D.P. Moran and…
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Ep. 123 – THE GREAT GALLAHER
What opera is like a railway line? Topics in this episode include MacHugh’s love of Greek, kyrie eleison, Lenehan’s riddle and limerick, the legendary Ignatius Gallaher, the real-life Gallaher, the Phoenix Park murders and the Invincibles, what Crawford gets wrong about the Invincibles, Gumley and Skin-the-Goat, Gallaher’s great scoop in the New York World, the…
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Ep. 122- A Hungarian it was one day…
Did Leopold Bloom really give Arthur Griffith the idea for Sinn Fein? Topics in this episode include Stephen delivering Mr. Deasy’s letter, Stephen’s vampire poem, Crawford dunks on Mr. Deasy, a cure for foot and mouth disease, the assassination attempt against Emperor Franz Josef, Maximilian Karl O’Donnell, graf von Tirconnell’s heroic defense of the Emperor,…
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Rawhead and Bloody Bones in the Burton
“Although Joyce’s parallel reduces Homer’s ‘murderous reception’ to the farce of teeth chomping, a similar violence does exist here, if only in the poverty that has produced this scene…” – Trevor L. Williams After passing through Grafton St. on the way to lunch in “Lestrygonians”, Ulysses’ eighth episode, Leopold Bloom must pass through one more…
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Ep. 118 – The Sham Squire
—And here comes the sham squire himself! professor MacHugh said grandly. Topics in this episode include the last vestiges of Doughy Daw’s effulgence, the mysterious identity of Wetherup, Myles Crawford, the real men behind Myles Crawford, red the correpsondent color of “Aeolus”, the Egyptian god Thoth, Crawford’s birdlike qualities, the birds of augury, banter, Francis…