DROMARD TERRACE IN the Southside suburb of Sandymount is an unassuming stretch of red-bricked houses.

The short road runs parallel to the sweeping strand, and it’s just around the corner from the neat, railing-ringed village green, both of which on Tuesday were a-bustle with all the accoutrements of Bloomsday – straw boaters, jaunty bonnets, dog-eared copies of Ulysses, readings, music and the enthusiastic quaffing of gargle long before the sun had approached any yardarm in polite society.

Sandymount is an obvious hot-spot for Joyceans – after all, the strand is the location for two episodes in the book, Proteus and Nausicaa, with its infamous fireworks passage.

James Joyce statue in Dublin. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Yet perhaps the most interesting Sandymount spot is also its most under-celebrated – the sturdy cream-coloured Edwardian house on Dromard Terrace, unremarkable save for a modest round plaque affixed at squinting-level to its front facade.

It simply reads, “James Joyce stayed here on 16th June 1904, the day on which he set his novel, Ulysses”.

Quite the understatement.

The house probably looks a little different now than it did when James Joyce, jobbing writer, walked through the door on that summer evening for his first date with Nora Barnacle. He had probably spiffed himself up a bit in his room before he left, wanting to make an impression on the 20-year-old Galway chambermaid whom he had first spotted “sauntering” along Nassau Street a few days earlier and, thunderstruck, had asked out on a date.

But she stood him up.

Nonetheless, he persisted, sending her an imploring note. “I may be blind. I looked for a long time at a head of reddish-brown hair and decided it was not yours. I went home quite dejected. I would like to make an appointment, but it might not suit you. I hope you will........

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