James Joyce's Dublin,1904 with photographs from the William Lawrence Collection.IFI Film.

This poetic short film uses Robert French photographs from the William Lawrence Collection held in the National Library, to illustrate the Dublin of 1904 which served as a backdrop to James Joyce’s Ulysses. Directed by renowned drama and documentary maker Kieran Hickey in 1968, the film traces Joyce’s childhood and adolescence, and his meeting with Nora Barnacle on June 10th, 1904. The film conjures up the Dublin of 1904, a city of trams and horse-drawn carriages, of sailing ships and barges on the Liffey, and of lively bandstands filled with summer music. It provides a fine illustration of the Dublin through which Joyce’s fictional Leopold Bloom wandered on June 16th 1904 (the date now celebrated annually as Bloomsday). The music in the film references some of Joyce’s favourite songs many of which appear in Ulysses.