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College Green is a three-sided square in the centre of Dublin with Trinity College (top of picture) on the east side, the Bank of Ireland (left) on the north side, and a row of large commercial buildings, many of them banks, on the south side. College Green is mentioned four times in Ulysses and Leopold Bloom carries a passbook from the College Green branch of the Bank of Ulster. In the foreground a fourwheeler and a jaunting car are parked on a "hazard" in the middle of the green. Another group of cabs is parked on a second stand beyond equestrian statue of William of Orange (King Billy) which was blown up by Republicans in the 1930s. For another picture of College Green, see page 13.
Source:
College Green, Dublin [between 1880-1900].
Reproduction rights owned by National Library of Ireland (call no. LIMP3498).
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Bloomsday for Cab Drivers / 32
Molly Bloom
Ulysses ends with one-sentence soliloquy by Molly Bloom which is 46 pages long. This is possibly the longest sentence ever published in a book intended for reading and therefore qualifies as a major literary tourist attraction.
However, from the cab trade point of view the interest pretty much fades out in Episode 16 when Bloom and Dedalus leave the cabmen's shelter. Molly says almost nothing about cabs.
Ironically, for one who inspired so much critical attention and the publication of so many scholarly books and articles, Joyce himself earned little or nothing from his writings and made his living mainly as an English teacher until 1914, when the wealthy feminist and publisher Harriet Shaw Weaver began to support him financially.
The general public only took notice of him in the U.S. when Ulysses was banned, and even more so in 1933 when the ban was overturned in a landmark obscenity trial.
Joyce seems to have remained relatively unaffected by fame. When one of his smarmier acolytes asked if he could kiss the hand that wrote Ulysses, Joyce replied "No, it did a lot of other things too."