Sandymount Strand

When Stephen thinks "I am here" at the beginning of Proteus, he is standing somewhere on "Sandymount strand," the beach and tide flats east of the suburb of Sandymount on Dublin's eastern edge. Nausicaa takes place on the same stretch of shoreline, and both episodes of Ulysses invite comparison with the passage at the end of part 4 of A Portrait of the Artist in which Stephen walks along a beach on the north side of the Liffey, near Dollymount.

John Hunt 2015

Tidal flats off Sandymount, viewed from the north, near high tide. Source: www.homeaway.co.uk.

Tidal flats off Sandymount, viewed from the south, near ebb tide. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Dublin in 1902. Grey dots east of the city show the extent of tidal flats exposed by ebb tides.