Jung and Easily Freudened

Visitors to Dublin spend a lot of time wandering round in the footsteps of Leopold Bloom. I have a fondness for the haunts of the young Stephen Daedelus, as they include some of the best sea views in the country.

Howth I tend to skip... too far out of town and with an over-windy climate, as the sea is almost all around. Useless if one wants to grow good happy fruit trees. ?

Despite the continuing international obsessions with James Joyce as a touchstone for our dirty 'auld city, I find his work self serving and old fashioned in the extreme. Did he ever really manage to rise above his writing, as the youthful hero of the "Portrait" would have wished?

Joyce was hailed as a European rather than an Irish writer by early critics and pundits. Does it really matter now that national identity is on the wane, if not actually obsolete?