College Green is a paved plaza (it has not been green for a
very long time) west of the main entrance of Trinity College
in south central Dublin. Several major streets converge on it:
Grafton Street from the south, Dame Street from the west,
Westmoreland Street from the north, and College Street from
the northeast. The Bank of Ireland building, former home of
the Irish Parliament, stands on its northern edge.
In Joyce's time one of four parliamentary constituencies for
the city of Dublin, represented by one member of the House of
Commons, was named for the square. In Aeolus Bloom
reflects that Joseph Patrick Nannetti is the
current "Member for College green." The name is
misleading, because nearly all of this district lay north of
the Liffey and west of Sackville Street. It dipped below the
river only in a small southeastern bulge that included College
Green.
In Scylla and Charybdis Mulligan looks at the
telegram that Stephen has sent him late in the morning and
asks, "Where did you launch it from? The kips? No. College
Green." Consulting Thom's directory, Gifford
notes that there was a postal and telegraph office at 29
College Green. This post office, which no longer exists, was
on the south side of the plaza across from the Bank of
Ireland. The address places Stephen only a few blocks from The Ship
on Lower Abbey Street where Mulligan and Haines were waiting
for him to show up and buy them drinks. Instead of walking the
short distance down Westmoreland Street to join them, Stephen
has taunted Mulligan by sending him a telegram.
Oxen of the Sun observes that Mina Purefoy's husband
works as "the conscientious second accountant of the Ulster
bank, College Green branch." This bank was centered in
Belfast but had branch offices throughout Ireland. The College
Green branch, one of four in Dublin, was at 32-33 College
Green, on the same side of the plaza as the post office, and
it has remained there to the present day, though at the time
of the writing of this note it was up for sale. In The
Encyclopaedia of Dublin, Douglas Bennett recounts how
the bank's office expanded to swallow up much of the south
side of the square: "A great part of the south side from
Grafton Street to Church Lane is occupied by the Ulster Bank
headquarters. In 1962, the Ulster Bank demolished the Irish
poplin shop of Richard Atkinson and Co., which had been
occupied since 1835 by the firm. Richard Atkinson was Lord
Mayor in 1857 and 1861. The bank then demolished the post
office building in 1975, after the post office had been moved
to Andrew Street" (49).
In Ithaca it becomes apparent that Bloom has an
account at this bank: a drawer in his desk contains "a bank
passbook issued by the Ulster Bank, College Green branch
showing statement of a/c for halfyear ending 31 December 1903,
balance in depositor’s favour: £ 18-14-6 (eighteen pounds,
fourteen shillings and sixpence, sterling), net personalty."
The Green dates back to medieval times, when this space lay
outside the walls of Dublin. Bennett observes that it was
"originally Hoggen Green from the nunnery of the Blessed
Virgin Mary del Hogges built in 1156 by Dermot McMurrogh, King
of Leinster" (48). (This was only a few years before Dermot
invited Anglo-Norman soldiers to Ireland to help him recover
his lost kingdom.) The name changed when Trinity College was
built in the 17th and 18th centuries.
