Monday, June 22nd The Trip to Sandycove and James Joyce Tower, Closed Mondays

By Danny Covino,

The Joyce Tower is a Martello tower just short trip out of Dublin, famous for holding the opening chapter of Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses. And what a lovely tower it is! It’s… Tall! And round! It’s not actually particularly impressive compared to other structures in Ireland, nor is it even particularly old – It was built as recently as 1804, one of a series of coastal forts built by the British to ward off the threat of Napoleon. There are far grander and far older structures in Ireland… But none of those are in Ulysses! And none of them have a James Joyce museum, either.

Despite being generally open to the public free of charge, the museum was tragically closed on the day of our visit. We could not go inside the tower, so I can’t tell you what the view from the top was like. I also cannot tell you about any of the (occasionally morbid) exhibits, like “Joyce’s Last Cane” or “An iron cast of Joyce’s deathmask”. But despite that all, I have no regrets.

There are a lot of places in Ireland that could be called “a part of history”, but there aren’t nearly so many that you could call “a part of literature”. Of all the literary world, Joyce’s works are some of the most uniquely bound to the places they’re inspired by. It’s hard to express if you haven’t read him, but there really is a unique sense of presence to Joyce’s work. If I wanted to be a bit esoteric, I could even say that the genius loci of Dublin is as much responsible for Ulysses as Joyce himself was – And it was an honor to stand where it began.