52. Farewell to Dublin

My recent visit to Dublin (see Ireland where I have never been and A prize binding) brought me to Parnell Square, where the Dublin Writers Museum stands almost next door to the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane.

Decorated ceiling, Dublin Writers Museum, June 2012

The Writers Museum, situated in two restored Georgian houses at the north side of the square, has a charmingly old fashioned feel to it. I think I have never before seen so many more or less famous typewriters in two rooms. Photography, alas, was not allowed. Upstairs is a splendid reception room, with decorated plaster ceilings, busts and paintings, and, surprisingly a piano that was bought by James Joyce in 1910, when he lived in Triest. The instrument, manufactured by Anton Petrof, is on loan from the James Joyce Museum. (Incidentally, while I was walking the Dublin streets, Ulysses was published in Amsterdam in a new Dutch translation by Erik Bindervoet and Robbert-Jan Henkes: Ulixes).

James Joyce's piano

Next to this 'Gallery of Writers' is a small room with bookcases, containing a selection of recently published and not systematically acquired or arranged Irish books.

Dublin Writers Museum, library, June 2012

Two odd volumes of Yeats' collected works were placed on the shelves (on opposite sides of the room). One can easily recognize the binding design by Ricketts that I discussed in blog 48 on an edition Plays in prose and verse, which was published in 1922 and reprinted several times, carrying the abbreviated title Plays on the spine.

Dublin Writers Museumm, library shelf, June 2012