CONNECT, the Trinity-based research centre, yesterday commemorated the wedding anniversary of James Joyce and Nora Barnacle by donating a painting of the famous couple to Sweny’s Pharmacy.
Sweny’s, located less than a minute’s walk from the CONNECT centre, is the pharmacy made famous by its vivid depiction in Joyce’s Ulysses. It also lies just 50 yards from the site on which Joyce was first “stood up” by Barnacle, on July 14th, 1904. Two days later, the couple met romantically for the first time, a date now famous as the setting of Ulysses.
The portrait was painted by the late father of CONNECT Director Prof Linda Doyle and appears to show Barnacle and Joyce on their wedding day, 87 years ago yesterday. Oliver Doyle was a printer for the Cork Examiner and an amateur painter. In an email statement to The University Times, Linda Doyle described Sweny’s as an “amazing place”.
The hero of Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, visits Sweny’s in the fifth chapter of the novel. He marvels at the sights and smells of the pharmacy, before taking with him a bar of soap –”sweet lemony wax” – which then becomes the talisman for his journey. Sweny’s is now a major tourist attraction, hosting daily readings of Ulysses and a recreation of the scene every year on July 16th – or Bloomsday, as it has become known.
In addition to directing CONNECT – a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) research centre headquartered in Trinity and with links to over 40 industry partners – Doyle was appointed Trinity’s Dean of Research last November. In the past decade, she has authored hundreds of academic papers and raised over €70 million in research funding.
