James Joyce Tower And Museum
The James Joyce Tower and Museum is a Martello tower in Sandycove, Dublin, where James Joyce spent six nights in 1904. The tower was leased from the British War Office by Joyce's university friend Oliver St. John Gogarty, with the purpose of "Hellenising" Ireland. Joyce left after an incident in which Gogarty fired a gun in his direction.
The opening scenes of Ulysses are set the morning after this incident. Gogarty is immortalised as "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan" (the opening words of the novel).
The tower now contains a museum dedicated to Joyce and displays some of his possessions and other ephemera associated with Ulysses (e.g. an empty pot of "Plumtree's Potted Meat"). The living space is set up to resemble its 1904 appearance (with a ceramic panther to represent one seen in a dream by a resident). It is a place of pilgrimage for Joyce enthusiasts, especially on Bloomsday.
The Tower became a museum through the efforts of the Dublin artist, John Ryan. Ryan also rescued the front door to 7 Eccles Street (now at the James Joyce Centre) from demolition and organised, with Brian O'Nolan, the first Bloomsday Celebration in 1954.
Read more about James Joyce Tower And Museum: Further Reading, Opening Hours
Famous quotes containing the words james, joyce, tower and/or museum:
“The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender.”
—Philip Guedalla (1889–1944)
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
—Bible: New Testament Jesus, in John, 15:13.
In Ulysses, James Joyce wrote, “Greater love than this ... no man hath that a man lay down his wife for his friend.”
“The King’s name is a tower of strength.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The Museum is not meant either for the wanderer to see by accident or for the pilgrim to see with awe. It is meant for the mere slave of a routine of self-education to stuff himself with every sort of incongruous intellectual food in one indigestible meal.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)