An Irishman's Diary

FOR A YEAR or two now, I have been passing Sweny's Chemist shop several times a week, accompanied by my daughter, who in recent times took to asking on such occasions: "Can we buy soap?" She has about the same level of interest in James Joyce's Ulyssesas most 10-year-olds – or indeed most adults – which is to say: none. But lemon soap was something she could relate to, on June 16th or any other day. And we bought it just often enough – two or three times – for it to become a ritual.

Of late I was beginning to notice that the shop was never open when we passed. But there was always an excuse. It would be Saturday, or 6pm, or 5pm Friday when maybe they finished early. More often than not, truth to tell, we passed it without noticing, distracted by the challenge of not getting killed while crossing at the top of Westland Row.

It was only when I saw Anthony Quinn’s letter on Wednesday that the penny finally dropped. Another piece of Joycean Dublin had closed for good, several months ago, and apparently without public comment. Not just any piece, either, but one of the most authentic: a premises that still carries the actual sign a youthful Joyce would have seen, and that was a chemist’s shop for decades before Leopold Bloom’s fictional soap purchase immortalised it.

More than a century after that, the end came quietly on a Friday last February, with a small family gathering on the premises, a parting glass, and a final reading of the relevant passage from Ulysses.

This poignantly includes the part where Bloom notes the permanence of chemist shops: “their green and gold beaconjars too heavy to stir”. With that, Sweny’s doors closed for the last time: since when there has not been a whimper in Joycean circles, or at least one that I heard.

It is impossible to go into detail here about why it closed, because the sisters who ran it for more than 35 years do not want to discuss the issue any more. They were reluctantly forced into the spotlight a few years ago when, as reported in this newspaper, the building appeared to be having a very bad run of luck, with a series of fires and a burglary.

At that time they appealed to various sources for support in keeping Sweny’s open. But whatever support they received was insufficient, it seems. And although the building is listed for preservation, its use as a chemist is not. My understanding is that there is now no prospect of it reopening as such.

There is a sad irony about the timing. Five years ago, when the Tiger was still roaring, nothing seemed safe from redevelopment. Then the construction industry crashed and took the banks with it. And maybe the reason Sweny’s passing went unnoticed last spring was because so many other businesses were closing their doors too.

In any case, it now seems to have gone the way of nearby Greene's, which after 150 years as a second-hand bookstore has become one more outlet for a British shirt-retail chain. And Sweny's was of similar vintage. In fact, it made headlines even before James Joyce was born – in The Irish Timesof 1866 – when the original Dr Sweny was at the centre of a sensational court case.

On the way home one night, he and Mrs Sweny were accosted on Nassau Street by a Constable Quinn, who manhandled both the doctor and, scandalously, his wife. The outraged Sweny assaulted the policeman, calling him a “scoundrel” and – it was later claimed in court – regretting that he didn’t have a “sabre” to hand, so he could “run him through”.

Sweny was dragged to the police station and fined £1 for attacking an officer. But in a subsequent court case, Constable Quinn was convicted of assault; although the judge seemed to consider the whole affair an unfortunate misunderstanding, arising from the officer’s initial failure to grasp that he was dealing with “respectable” people.

Joyce, therefore, merely conferred a longer-term fame on No 1 Lincoln Place. And, by the way, the soap purchase was not the shop's only significance in Ulysses.

It is immediately upon leaving Sweny’s that Bloom runs into the feckless Bantam Lyons, and unwittingly predicts the winner of Ascot Gold Cup, to be run that afternoon. Lyons cadges a read of Bloom’s newspaper to check the racing page, whereupon Bloom tells him to keep it because he was about to “throw it away”.

The half-listening Lyons gives the paper back and then starts a rumour that Bloom – now cast by Joyce as the prophet Elijah – has tipped the 100-5 outsider “Throwaway” for the big race. This causes an outbreak of anti-semitic begrudgery that starts in Davy Byrnes and, after the horse wins, culminates in the comic “crucifixion” at Barney Kiernan’s pub, where the Citizen chases after Bloom with his dog and a biscuit tin.

Barney Kiernan’s pub is long gone, along with most of Joyce’s Dublin. Now it’s Sweny’s turn. Meanwhile, in England at least, some things don’t change.

The big Ascot race meeting still takes place in mid-June, albeit with a slight variation of dates. The 2009 Gold Cup was yesterday, two days later than in 1904. And in a bittersweet tribute to Ireland’s relationship with literature, the big story in advance of the race was whether it would deliver a fourth successive win for an Aidan O’Brien-trained horse called “Yeats”.