On June 16th, 1962, four decades after Ulysses was published, the Martello tower that had been the site of this fraternal conclave opened as a museum to commemorate the fictional happenings it housed and the stay of Joyce within its walls.īloomsday at the Martello tower at Sandycove, Dublin, in 2008. As they think towards the other tip of Europe – Greece – with dreams of "Hellenising" their own island, the shaving Buck sweeps his "mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings abroad in sunlight now radiant on the sea", inviting us on an Odyssean voyage designed to refute Matthew Arnold's contention that the Celtic genius could not sustain epic proportions. Joyce's description of this ad hoc cohabitation in Ulysses captures the sparkle and light, the crispness and briskness, of the Dublin seaside setting. Their real-life counterparts – Oliver Gogarty, James Joyce and Samuel Chenevix Trench – shared the same tower overlooking Dublin bay in 1904, hoping for futures of greatness (or at least solvency) but feeling the uncertain poise of post-university freefall. Their business is study, thought and scraping by. Three young men – two Irish and one English – sprawl and bicker in bohemian quarters, a rented Martello tower on the outskirts of the city.
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