Sacred pint

In Telemachus Mulligan says that "The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus." The sacredness of drink is a joke told with deep conviction in Ulysses. Mulligan has earlier proposed a lunchtime drinking bout by spouting the national creed, "Ireland expects that every man this day will do his duty," and he is right about intoxication unbinding Stephen’s tongue. When Stephen appears in a highly inebriated state in Oxen of the Sun he is unusually voluble, and one of the first things he says, while filling his companions' cups, is that man does not live by bread alone.

John Hunt 2011

Chalk drawing at the Fort George Brewery and Public House in Astoria, Oregon. Source: www.oregonlive.com.

Church of the Immaculate Conception, off Merchant's Quay, Dublin. Source: Wikimedia Commons.