After walking along the Sandymount strand (the section of
beach east of the suburb of Sandymount), Stephen turns first
northeast toward the wall, and then east along it, walking
beside its great "boulders" which he imagines
as "piled stone mammoth skulls." Finding
himself "nearer the edge of the sea" to the
east, he decides that he has gone far enough and retraces his
steps: "He lifted his feet up from the suck and turned
back by the mole of boulders." One meaning of
"mole," according to the OED, is "A massive structure, esp. of
stone, serving as a pier or breakwater, or as a junction
between two places separated by from each other by water."
Stephen's jaunt will conclude by watching the incoming tide
from the rocks, climbing onto the wall, continuing west on the
road that runs atop it, and walking back to solid land dry and
safe: "The flood is following me. I can watch it flow
past from here. Get back then by the Poolbeg road to
the strand there."
Dublin's Great South Wall or South Bull Wall ("bull" is a
synonym for strand or beach) was constructed of wood pilings
and gravel in the early 18th century, and reinforced with huge
granite blocks (quarried in Dalkey, and floated in by barges)
in the second half of the century. At the time of its
construction it was the longest seawall in the world. The
purpose was to protect ships from violent weather, which often
wrecked vessels in the sands of the estuary and which, even
when not so disastrous, could delay entry into Dublin for
weeks.
A second seawall, the North Bull Wall, was built in the first
half of the 19th century to solve the problem of silting at
the mouth of the Liffey. Together with the south wall, which
it angled down to nearly meet, it effectively scoured away
silt and sand, deepening the river channel and allowing ships
to proceed farther upstream. (Similar long seawalls were built
south of New Orleans to propel the massive loads of silt in
the Mississippi River far out into the Gulf of Mexico.)
At the end of Finnegans Wake, as Anna Livia drifts
out to sea, she thinks of passing the juncture where the two
long arms of seawall come nearly together: "sad and weary I go
back to you, my cold father, my cold mad father, my cold mad
feary father, till the near sight of the mere size of him, the
moyles and moyles of it, moananoaning, makes me seasilt
saltsick and I rush, my only, into your arms. I see them
rising! Save me from those therrble prongs!" The 1902 map here
illustrates how the two prongs come together to force the
river's water out into the cold miles of open ocean.
Other features of the south wall figure in Ulysses.
After construction of the wall was complete, a lighthouse was
built at its far end. This lighthouse, painted a distinctive
bright red, is mentioned in the novel as "the Poolbeg
light." During the construction of the wall, a
storehouse for materials was built on land created about
halfway along its length. When the wall was finished, the
caretaker who lived in this building, John Pidgeon, converted
it into a tavern and later a hotel, to cater to sailors and
travelers arriving in Dublin from long sea voyages. It became
known as "the Pigeonhouse," and although the
name has nothing to do with birds, it sets Stephen's mind
tumbling through thoughts of pigeons
and wild geese.
In 1798, fearing French invasion, the government took
possession of the Pigeon House, turned the hotel into
officers' quarters, and built a barracks
and fortifications. In the 1866 print here, the distinctive
shape of the Pigeon House can be seen to the left of the huge
hulking fortifications. In 1897 the Dublin Corporation bought
the land and buildings, demolished the fort, and constructed a
coal-fired electricity generating station, which began
producing power in 1903. That power plant was decommissioned
in the early 1970s, replaced by a pair of much smaller
smokestacks with red and white stripes at the top which can be
seen in the largest of the photographs.
In the Dubliners story called "An Encounter," three
boys plan a day of "miching," or truancy from school. "We
arranged to go along the Wharf Road until we came to the
ships, then to cross in the ferryboat and walk out to see the
Pigeon House." They never get that far.
At the end of Cyclops, Bloom's departure from
Barney Kiernan's pub is imagined as a maritime launch: "the
mastodontic pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by a final
floral tribute from the representatives of the fair sex who
were present in large numbers while, as it proceeded down the
river, escorted by a flotilla of barges, the flags of the Ballast office and Custom
House were dipped in salute as were also those of the
electrical power station at the Pigeonhouse and the Poolbeg
Light."
