Sir, – As leaders of the International James Joyce Foundation, a large organisation of scholars, students, critics, readers, and writers, we wish to add our names to the growing list of Irish Times readers writing in to say they oppose the recently reported plans of developers. According to the planning application, James Joyce’s great-aunts’ home at 15 Usher’s Island, the setting for Joyce’s short story The Dead, is to be turned into a hostel with 56 rooms and a four-storey extension at the back.
We are well aware, as James Joyce was, that cities stand on the ruins of older parts of the city, but it would be a great credit to the city that was immortalised by James Joyce if it would preserve and protect the setting of a short story that has a place at the centre of the literary memory of Dublin, of Ireland, and of the world. – Yours, etc,
GEERT LERNOUT,
President,
CLAIRE CULLETON,
President-Elect,
International
James Joyce Foundation,
Zurich.