Probably more than any other writer, James Joyce depends upon the experiences and circumstances of his youth for his characters and material.

He was born on February 2nd, 1882 at 6am in 41, Brighton Square, Rathgar which is a suburb of Dublin. Joyce was the eldest in a family of ten who, due to ever decreasing prosperity, moved constantly to new addresses in Dublin. In spite of their financial situation, the Joyce family educated James in the Jesuit tradition at Clongowes Wood College, Belvedere College and University College Dublin. Clongowes Wood is a prestigious Jesuit school catering for the sons of Catholic gentlemen and Joyce's arrival there was the beginning of his long association with the Order. He was afterwards to say:

" From them I have learnt to arrange things in such a way that they become easy to survey and to judge".

In 1903, his mother died and a year later he met and eloped to the continent with Nora Barnacle. They spent a few months in Pola before moving to Trieste where both of their children were born and they remained until 1915.

The publication history of Joyce's works is an interesting one, but also one fraught with immense difficulties. Chamber Music, a collection of poetry was the first among his works to be published (1907). Following this, Dubliners, a collection of short stories was finally published in 1914 after some controversy and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man first appeared in print in 1916.

Ulysses, after which this ship is named, tells the story of a day in the life of Dublin using Homer's epic 'The Odyssey' as inspiration. In 'The Odyssey', Odysseus wanders for many years in a bid to reach his homeland of Ithaca where his wife Penelope awaits his return.

Joyce condenses this drifting into one day and latinises the name Odysseus to Ulysses. Our hero, Leopold Bloom roves throughout the city until he returns home in the penultimate chapter, entitled Ithaca. Each chapter corresponds with a particular hour, organ of the body, art form, colour, symbol and writing technique.

The Wanderings of Stephen and Leopold Designed by Janette Mooney from an original idea by Janette Mooney and Luke McManus

There are eighteen chapters in all: Telemachus, Nestor, Proteus, Calypso, Lotuseaters, Hades, Aeolus, Lestrygonians, Scylla and Charybdis, Wandering Rocks, Sirens, Cyclops, Nausicaa, Oxen of the Sun, Circe, Eumeus, Ithaca and Penelope.

The final work was published on Joyce's birthday in 1922 and was met with rhapsody and censure from different parts of the globe.