Davy Byrne's Pub is situated at 21 Duke Street, Dublin 2 and was made famous in James Joyce

James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

's novel Ulysses

Ulysses (novel)

Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...

. In the novel, Leopold Bloom

Leopold Bloom

Leopold Bloom is the fictional protagonist and hero of James Joyce's Ulysses. His peregrinations and encounters in Dublin on 16 June 1904 mirror, on a more mundane and intimate scale, those of Ulysses/Odysseus in The Odyssey....

 stops for a gorgonzola cheese sandwich and a glass of burgundy

Burgundy wine

Burgundy wine is wine made in the Burgundy region in eastern France, in the valleys and slopes west of the Saône River, a tributary of the Rhône. The most famous wines produced here - those commonly referred to as "Burgundies" - are red wines made from Pinot Noir grapes or white wines made from...

 while wandering through Dublin.

The pub is not fictitious, and is still around today. It is a popular pilgrimage point for fans of the novel, who, like Leopold Bloom, stop and have a cheese sandwich and a glass of wine. The pub is particularly popular on Bloomsday

Bloomsday

Bloomsday is a commemoration observed annually on 16 June in Dublin and elsewhere to celebrate the life of Irish writer James Joyce and relive the events in his novel Ulysses, all of which took place on the same day in Dublin in 1904...

.

It is also mentioned in the collection of short stories, Green Rushes (aka The Quiet Man

The Quiet Man

The Quiet Man is a 1952 American Technicolor romantic comedy-drama film. It was directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Victor McLaglen and Barry Fitzgerald. It was based on a 1933 Saturday Evening Post short story by Maurice Walsh...

), by Maurice Walsh

Maurice Walsh

Maurice Walsh was an Irish novelist best known for the short story The Quiet Man which was later made into an Oscar nominated movie directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. Walsh was born in 1879 in Ballydonoghue near Listowel, Co. Kerry, Ireland...

.

Excerpts from Ulysses

He entered Davy Byrne's. Moral pub. He doesn't chat. Stands a drink now and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.

What will I take now? He drew his watch. Let me see now. Shandygaff?

—Hello, Bloom, Nosey Flynn said from his nook.

—Hello, Flynn.

—How's things?

—Tiptop ... Let me see. I'll take a glass of burgundy and ... let me see.

•
•
•

—Have you a cheese sandwich?

—Yes, sir.

Like a few olives too if they had them. Italian I prefer. Good glass of burgundy take away that. Lubricate. A nice salad, cool as a cucumber, Tom Kernan can dress. Puts gusto into it. Pure olive oil. Milly served me that cutlet with a sprig of parsley. Take one Spanish onion. God made food, the devil the cooks. Devilled crab.

—Wife well?

—Quite well, thanks ... A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you?

—Yes, sir.

•
•
•

Davy Byrne came forward from the hindbar in tuckstitched shirtsleeves, cleaning his lips with two wipes of his napkin. Herring's blush. Whose smile upon each feature plays with such and such replete. Too much fat on the parsnips.

—And here's himself and pepper on him, Nosey Flynn said. Can you give us a good one for the Gold cup?

—I'm off that, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne answered. I never put anything on a horse.

—You're right there, Nosey Flynn said.

Mr Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread, with relish of disgust, pungent mustard, the feety savour of green cheese. Sips of his wine soothed his palate. Not logwood that. Tastes fuller this weather with the chill off.

Nice quiet bar. Nice piece of wood in that counter. Nicely planed. Like the way it curves there.