Archway

Archway

In Brief

The Georgian Dublin constructed in the 18th century was full of archways. They appear several times in the book, always unnamed and always associated with excrement.

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In Proteus Stephen imagines two walkers on Sandymount Strand as wandering gypsies, a woman who sells her body and a male companion who markets her. She lurks in an archway: "When night hides her body's flaws calling under her brown shawl from an archway where dogs have mired." Circe adds the smell of urine: "In an archway a standing woman, bent forward, her feet apart, pisses cowily." And, later in the same chapter, King Edward VII "appears in an archway." He is holding "a plasterer's bucket on which is printed Défense d'uriner."

JH 2011
Stephen's Lane, watercolor by Flora H. Mitchell. Source: Vanishing Dublin.