Dublin, as seen in Joyce's writing, affords not only an insight into his personal experiences, but a picture of aspects of the social life of the city. Dubliners is primarily an account of life on the north side, or in the case of the most famous of the stories, ‘The Dead’, of a Christmas party held in a house on Usher's Island, immediately across the Liffey. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is, in its central section, an account of an adolescent attending the Jesuit College at Belvedere and of his frequenting the district around the College in the north inner city. Moreover, it is less an account of his schooldays there than a version of certain key experiences which began to take place in 1898, when he was around sixteen. His earlier life, some important episodes apart, is glossed over quickly, as is the account of later life in the north city which jumps forward quickly from first impressions to his exploration of sex, both actual and imagined, and of the brothel district that had developed quite recently off Gardiner Street.

The extraordinary account of a Catholic adolescence in Joyce's pages, while an artistic creation and a psychological study, is also saturated in the geography of a distinct district.