By Paula Redmond
James Joyce lived in the Italian city of Trieste for over a decade. He moved to the city with Nora Barnacle, whom he would later marry, in 1904, when he was 22 years old. The city was then part of the Austro – Hungarian Empire and Joyce hoped to find work as an English teacher.
To support himself and his family, the struggling writer worked at various jobs, including lecturer; journalist; clerk; teacher; translator and Irish tweed agent.
In the early 1900s Joyce had pondered why Irish industrial firms, such as tweed-makers, were not sending agents abroad to promote and sell their products.
Joyce returned to Dublin in 1909 to set up the Volta Cinema. While back in his home city he visited the Dublin Woollen Company, situated at 15 Bachelor’s Walk (pictured below), and arranged to act as an agent for them in Trieste.