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11 - Riverrun

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2023

Christopher Morash
Affiliation:
Trinity College Dublin
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Summary

If James Joyce’s final novel, Finnegans Wake, can be said to be set anywhere, it is in a pub in Chapelizod, in the west of Dublin along the River Liffey, beside the Phoenix Park, which marks the city’s historical western boundary. This had already been the location for gothic fiction by Sheridan Le Fanu in the nineteenth century, and the poet Thomas Kinsella would often return in his writing to the area around the Park, and nearby Inchicore, where he grew up. However, before any of these writers, the Phoenix Park itself developed a literature of its own in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and was a place for promenading and for duelling. Today, the contrast between past and present is sharper in this part of the city than perhaps anywhere else. With the rapid geographical spread of Dublin since the middle of the twentieth century, new suburbs have spread far beyond the original western bounds of the city, extending into neighbouring counties. It is here that the challenge of finding literary forms adequate to the life of its citizens is felt most strongly in a city that has long defined itself as a writer’s city.

Type
Chapter
Information
Dublin
A Writer's City
, pp. 230 - 251
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Riverrun
  • Christopher Morash, Trinity College Dublin
  • Book: Dublin
  • Online publication: 16 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108917810.012
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  • Riverrun
  • Christopher Morash, Trinity College Dublin
  • Book: Dublin
  • Online publication: 16 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108917810.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Riverrun
  • Christopher Morash, Trinity College Dublin
  • Book: Dublin
  • Online publication: 16 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108917810.012
Available formats
×