A gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of Burgundy representing Davy Byrne's in James Joyce's Ulysses and Dublin on 16 June 1904

Ulysses is James Joyce's most famous novel and a landmark work of modernist literature. It describes a day in the life of Leopold Bloom in Dublin. He visits numerous places, such as Sweny's Pharmacy and Davy Byrne's, which Joyce himself experienced in Dublin in the early 1900s. Although Joyce spent most of his time in exile, the process of writing Ulysses was an intense engagement with this city, enabling him to characterize the various places in Dublin in nuanced ways. The partly fictional character of the main protagonists is embedded in the atmosphere and identity of the real place in such a way that the real and fictional places merge and become virtually indistinguishable. The place is made accessible to others even if they are not in Dublin themselves. Not only is the content remarkable but also the form chosen by James Joyce. This is evident in the way the novel parallels the narrative around a single daily in the life of Leopold Bloom with the journey of Homer's Odysseus. The novel contains numerous references to other literary works as well as historical and (at that time) contemporary events, often requiring the reader to actively decode the text's layered meanings. This approach is reflected stylistically, as the text is rich in wordplay and abounds in neologisms that challenge and delight attentive readers. Most notable among the stylistic variety is the stream of consciousness technique. Due to its complex and multifaceted nature, Ulysses is said to be approachable only through repeated readings and long reflection. It is therefore not surprising that it took Joyce many years to write Ulysses, with initial ideas emerging in 1906 and the main work beginning in 1914. Ulysses was first published in 1922 (Slocum and Cahoon, 1953, pp. 24ff). The novel describes in eight pages how Leopold Bloom visits Davy Byrne's pub (Joyce, 2022, Episode 8, pp. 163ff). It is characterized as a respectable and peaceful place that Bloom is well familiar with. When he enters the pub, Nosey Flynn, another guest, greets him and they exchange a few words. The pub owner, Davy Byrne, a neat, reserved, and pedantic person, asks him about his wife. Mundane habits and seemingly trivial communication take centre stage. It is a place of everyday life. The strength of Bloom's sense of place here is evident in how far in advance he plans to visit this place. He appreciates the atmosphere at Davy Byrne's as a place to lose yourself in thought, a place to reason, and a place for self-observation. This portrayal of the place unfolds on an aesthetic and emotional level, thus drawing the reader into the place in many ways. A pub called Davy Byrne's actually exists in Dublin. It was established in 1889 as the successor to a previous pub, which had been in existence since 1798. The description of Davy Byrne's makes the reader mentally construct the fictional place while referring to many of the characteristics that we ascribe to the actual Davy Byrne's in 1904. Despite the actual existence of the place, its portrayal including Nosey Flynn and Davy Byrne deviates from the real pub due to the fictional story that unfolds there. The real Davy Byrne's has evolved over time. Following changes in ownership, it was transformed in the 1940s into a popular cocktail bar, notable for its refined Art Deco aesthetic. Today it houses, among other things, a corner with information about James Joyce and some of his books (Davy Byrnes, 2025). The portrayal of Davy Byrne's in Episode 8 gives rise to numerous place representations. The textual description of Davy Byrne's atmosphere and identity makes the reader create a mental image of this fictional place, thus denoting this very place. Since this fictional place resembles the actual place lived in 1904, the text becomes an expressive representation of this former Davy Byrne's. For Joyce enthusiasts, this place carries both literal and symbolic weight as it forms part of the novel's meticulous mapping of Dublin. Beyond the general role of the place in the novel's intricate web of meaning, the text describes Leopold Bloom entering the fictional Davy Byrne's and enjoying a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of Burgundy at 2 pm, which we relate to the actual place lived in 1904 and which developed into the Davy Byrne's we can visit today. When enjoying a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of Burgundy at today's Davy Byrne's with the intention to do what Bloom did on 16 June 1904, we resemble and thus quote the former fictional place-making by reliving that one ordinary yet special day on which Bloom, like every Dubliner, has absorbed the spirit of the city. What we do becomes a representation of Davy Byrne's as a fictional place, and the corresponding text passage. As the text is taken from Ulysses, the plot of which is set in Dublin and typically regarded as a representation of this city, enjoying a Gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of Burgundy at today's Davy Byrne's, particularly at 2 pm, has among Joyce enthusiasts become a representation of Dublin as it is experienced by Leopold Bloom on 16 June 1904.