Blackpitts

As Stephen contemplates the gypsy couple on the sands in Proteus, he imagines the woman offering herself to men in the street while her pimp works two others in a bar: "Her fancyman is treating two Royal Dublins in O'Loughlin's of Blackpitts." He is recalling a time that he spent walking through this bleak part of town in the Liberties: "Fumbally's lane that night: the tanyard smells." In Aeolus he makes this neighborhood the fictional residence, not of the gypsy couple, but of the two aging women that he spotted earlier on the beach, who now star in his Parable of the Plums.

John Hunt 2015

The Blackpitts section of Dublin, in a photograph taken ca. 1880-1900. Source: www.census.nationalarchives.ie.

Rear of houses in Blackpitts, in a photograph taken in 1913 by John Cooke to document the terrible living conditions. Source: dublincitypubliclibraries.com.