In Ithaca Bloom looks up from his back garden to the window of the bedroom above and sees the light of an oil lamp projected on the roller blind. The chapter notes that he purchased the blind from "Frank O'Hara, window blind, curtain pole and revolving shutter manufacturer, 16 Aungier street." The number is off by one but the business was real, and by including it in his novel Joyce called attention to a historically important thoroughfare.

Aungier Street (the name is French, but for Dubliners it rhymes with other formerly French words like ranger, danger, changer, and manger) lies in the southern part of the inner city about a quarter of a mile west of St. Stephen's Green, running southward from South Great George's Street all the way to Cuffe Street. The first planned street in post-medieval Dublin, it was laid out in 1661 about a decade before the construction of St. Stephen's Green, and at the time it was the widest street in the city. In The Encyclopaedia of Dublin (1991), Douglas Bennett notes that the medieval name was St Stephen Street, as shown on Speed's map of 1610. Sir Francis Aungier, created Earl of Longford in 1677, renamed the street after his ancestor Sir Francis Aungier, created Baron Aungier, as part of a development that also encompassed Longford Street and Cuffe Street. The poet Thomas Moore, author of Moore's Melodies, was born at number 12.

Joyce's address for Frank O'Hara's window dressing business, number 16, is wrong. In James Joyce's Dublin, Ian Gunn and Clive Hart note that "O'Hara's shop was at 17 Aungier Street. The error arises from Joyce's having consulted the alphabetical list in Thom's where the incorrect address appears. Both the street list and the trades' directory have the correct address. Clearly O'Hara does not find his way into Ulysses through Joyce's having looked up a likely window blind manufacturer in Thom's. He knew about O'Hara first, and then checked to find his address in the easiest way, by looking him up in the alphabetical list" (121-22).

By Joyce's time Aungier Street had fallen a long way from its 18th century splendor, when grand townhouses lined the spacious thoroughfare. The decline continued through much of the 20th century, but in recent years measures have been initiated to revitalize the historic neighborhood as part of the City Council Public Realm Strategy adopted in September 2012. Photos of number 21, more or less across the street from O'Hara's shop, can give a sense of the promise of this ongoing urban renewal project.

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