A mapping of the cultural archipelago of “Great Ireland” must include the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève in Paris – the Latin Quarter, sloping uphill from the church of St Germain-des-Prés (where Oscar Wilde’s body was brought for Requiem Mass) towards the Panthéon with its mighty classical cupola. Joyce once lived at 61 Rue Cardinal Lemoine, where a plaque notes that the “écrivain britannique d’origine Irlandais” completed Ulysses there.

When Thomas Flanagan, the Irish-American novelist, spoke of “Great Ireland”, he meant that Irish life and identity transcends the island itself. As James Joyce reflected, “Real adventures do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.”