All Hallows
All Hallows
In Brief
After his circuitous journey from Westland Row, Bloom comes to "the open backdoor of All Hallows." This church, which everyone but Joyce seems to call St. Andrew's, has a back entrance on Cumberland Street South and a main entrance on Westland Row, just south of the post office.
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St. Andrew's is a lovely church, and its founding in 1832,
shortly after Catholic Emancipation in 1828-29, was a matter
of considerable civic pride. The website of the Irish Catholic
Bishops Conference, www.catholicbishops.ie, notes that "The
church cost £20,000 to build, a large sum reflecting the
new-found confidence of Irish Catholics in the period after
Emancipation. The decision to build St Andrew's was also
strongly supported by one of its most eminent parishioners, Daniel O’Connell." O'Connell,
of course, had played a crucial role in passing the laws that
legitimized Catholic worship.
As happens again with the mortuary chapel in the next
chapter, Bloom takes no architectural or historical interest
in the church. For him it is a place where an alien species
performs strange rites. He is, however, "called" in by
"The cold smell of sacred stone"—an extraordinarily apt
and beautiful evocation of the experience of leaving city
streets for the quiet of an old stone church.
