Burke's

In response to the Ruskin-like language comparing the violent rainstorm to "the transformation, violent and instantaneous, upon the utterance of the Word," Stephen "outflings" a word that will violently and instantaneously transform the mood of the medical students in the common room: "Burke's!" This pub lay only a couple of blocks north of the maternity hospital, on the corner of Holles Street and Denzille Street (now Fenian Street), and in the final paragraphs of Oxen of the Sun the hour is approaching "Closingtime." The young men erupt from the hospital oblivious of everything else.

John Hunt 2024

30 March 1874 advertisement in the Freeman's Journal for the property at the corner of Holles Street and Denzille Street. Source: www.jjon.org.



Photograph of the property on Holles and (now) Fenian Street after its demolition in the 1960s, held in the Irish Architectural Archive. Source: www.jjon.org.


Map from a 2001 site plan to build an eight-story apartment complex on Fenian Street where Burke's pub was once located. Source: www.henchion-reuter.com.