Introduction to the seventeenth issue

The first issue of the James Joyce Online Notes came out ten years ago, in September 2011. Since then we have published over three hundred articles and notes and, we hope, have helped with the demystification of the real-life background to Joyce’s fiction.

In this issue Aidan Collins reviews St Vincent’s Hospital as it was known to Joyce, and Peter Fishback explores the story behind Captain Marshall’s horse. Ronan Crowley and John Simpson have combed the newspapers and other sources looking for information about the man who plucked Reuben Dodd’s son out of the Liffey that day in 1911. Other pieces concentrate on Mickey Rooney’s band, and Joycean updates to the OED.

But the most immediately noticeable change to the current issue is its design. We were naturally nervous when Google announced that it planned to withdraw its Classic Sites platform and to replace it in September 2021 with a new Google Sites with completely different software. It has taken several months to port the material from our old site onto the new one, and some functionality has been lost as the new platform is itself in the process of development.

However, the change has given us the opportunity to review the look of the site, and to give it perhaps a more modern feel. We are aware that it is only through using a site that we know how to improve it (better quick access to important areas, better internal search mechanisms, etc.). As well as any prospective articles you would like to submit to JJON we would also be interested to hear of improvements we might make to the site.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the new issue.

Harald Beck

John Simpson

Co-editors, JJON

Issue 17 Table of contents

Full article index