Having this as a creative space could be a real attraction for creating a community around the new housing. “A lot of banks around the city have been turned into restaurants or bars, but the creative industries are in need of space, and the Arts Council themselves would say a lot of artists have been pushed out of the city, with few places now to show work. In 1922 James Joyce published Ulysses, his most famous work.Prior to publication as a book, the work was serialized in The Little Review, a literary magazine.In 1920 this periodical published the 'Nausica episode', which contained a masturbation scene. However, Mr Mac Conghail said, the bank building may be retained cultural uses within the new residential community. With regard to the resources on this website, people tell me that they find it useful to read the. The work involved removing the false ceiling and partitions and creating an open public space, with white walls so artists can hang work.”ĭigital Hub lands have been identified for transfer to the Land Development Agency (LDA) with their redevelopment for housing expected to start from 2025. If you are reading Ulysses on your own, I recommend setting yourself a schedule: read at least one episode per week, and you should aim to read each of the first eight episodes within the same day (if not in one sitting). “It has one of those gorgeous domed atriums that floods natural light into the room during the day.

Work to convert the building for artists largely involved the removal of 20th century interventions to the building, including a false ceiling which hid the original dome, Digital Hub chief executive Fiach Mac Conghail said. Later in the 20th century the building returned to banking use with Bank of Ireland holding a long-term lease on it since 1976.

Guinness acquired a lease on the site in the 1890s, and changed its use to a waiting room for visitors to the brewery, which is how it features in Ulysses when tea merchant Tom Kernan “turned and walked down the slope of Watling Street by the corner of Guinness’s visitors’ waiting room”. The bank building opened in 1853 as a branch of the Dublin Savings Bank also known as St James’s Gate Bank. The inside of the building on James Street.

Ulysses by James Joyce