James Joyce Ulysses Bloomsday Walking Tour with Expert Guide

About This Tour

Whether you’ve read Ulysses cover to cover or you’ve always meant to, this private 3-hour tour brings James Joyce’s Dublin to life in a way the book alone can’t quite do. You walk the streets that Leopold Bloom walked on 16 June 1904, visiting the actual locations Joyce put into his masterpiece, with an expert local guide who knows the text and the city equally well.

You start at the site of 7 Eccles Street - Bloom’s home. From there, the tour traces Joyce’s own footsteps: the church he passed every day on the way to school, the school itself, the Parnell monument, the Joyce statue, Davy Byrne’s “moral pub” where Bloom ate his famous gorgonzola sandwich with a glass of burgundy, Newman House on St. Stephen’s Green where Joyce studied, and finally Sweny’s Pharmacy on Lincoln Place - preserved exactly as it was in Ulysses. Like Bloom, you can pick up a bar of lemon soap.

Hotel pick-up is included. This tour has won TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice every year from 2020 to 2024.

What’s Included

• Private tour
• Hotel pick-up
• Expert local Irish tour guide

What’s Not Included

• Gratuities
• Food and drinks
• Souvenirs

Itinerary

1. The Mater Private Hospital now occupies the site of 7 Eccles Street - Leopold Bloom’s home and the starting point of his famous journey through Dublin. (15 min)
2. St. George’s Church, which appears in the Calypso episode of Ulysses: “A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George’s church. They tolled the hour: loud dark iron.” Joyce walked past this church every day on his way to school. (10 min)
3. The school attended by both Joyce and his fictional alter ego Stephen Dedalus. (20 min)
4. The Parnell Monument - your guide explores the legacy of Charles Stewart Parnell and his repeated appearances throughout Joyce’s work. (20 min)
5. The Joyce statue in the centre of the city - there’s no more fitting place for it in the Hibernian Metropolis. (15 min)
6. Trinity College, rival of Joyce’s University College Dublin and featured in Ulysses in the character of George “Tinned” Salmon. (15 min)
7. Davy Byrne’s, Bloom’s “moral pub” - the spot where he ordered his gorgonzola sandwich and glass of burgundy in the Lestrygonians episode. (15 min)
8. Newman House on St. Stephen’s Green, where Joyce attended university. You’ll also see the bust of Joyce in the nearby park. (20 min)
9. Sweny’s Pharmacy on Lincoln Place, preserved exactly as it appeared in Ulysses. Like Bloom, you can pick up your bar of lemon soap. (20 min)

Meeting point: Your guide will meet you at the entrance on Eccles Street.

Good to Know

This is a private tour, conducted in English. The route is fully wheelchair accessible, with accessible transport options nearby. Prams and strollers are welcome, and service animals are allowed. Public transport is available nearby. Hotel pick-up is included.

Local Tips

Bloomsday is 16 June every year, and if your visit overlaps with it, Dublin does something genuinely special - people dress in Edwardian costume, Sweny’s holds readings, Davy Byrne’s serves the gorgonzola sandwich and burgundy, and the whole city leans into the day. The tour is worth doing any time, but doing it on the 16th has an atmosphere that’s hard to explain until you’re in it.

Sweny’s Pharmacy on Lincoln Place is a curiosity well worth knowing about. It’s run largely by volunteers who gather there to read Joyce aloud, and you really can buy a bar of lemon soap - the same kind Bloom picks up in the novel. It’s not a typical tourist shop; it’s more like a quiet community reading room that happens to have kept its Victorian fittings intact.

Davy Byrne’s on Duke Street is still a working pub, so if the tour finishes near lunchtime you could recreate Bloom’s exact order - the gorgonzola sandwich is still on the menu. Duke Street itself connects to Grafton Street, which is worth a wander if you’ve got time afterwards.

Your guide knows the text in depth, so if there are particular episodes of Ulysses you’re curious about - or if you’ve never read it and want a sense of what it’s actually about - don’t be shy about saying so at the start. These tours work well for devoted Joyce readers and first-timers alike.

Newman House on St. Stephen’s Green is one of the finest Georgian interiors in Dublin. The university connection adds the Joyce layer, but the building itself is worth noticing - the plasterwork in the salons is considered among the best of its kind in Ireland.

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