Image number 2 in the exhibition features North Richmond Street, where the Joyces lived at number 13 from 1985 to 1897. Joyce makes a lot of references and allusions to North Richmond Street in his work and Joyce biographer Richard Ellmann has argued that despite its relatively small size, the street has inspired the highest number of characters and stories in Joyce’s work. References to it can be found in ‘An Encounter’, ‘Araby’, ‘The Sisters’, and characters from 5 of the 20 houses on the street appear in Dubliners, Finnegans Wake and Ulysses. Joyce gives a detailed description of the street in the Dubliners story ‘Araby’ saying: “North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two stories stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. The other houses in the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.”
Press ‘A’ for more information on Image 2 - North Richmond Street… Press ‘B’ for more information on Image 6 - Hardwicke Street… Press ‘C’ for more information on Image 8 - Belvedere College…