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The James Joyce House of the Dead
The James Joyce House of the Dead is a historical and literary monument where James Joyce set his classic short story The Dead (short story). Located at 15 Usher's Island in Dublin, the house is an active museum that hosts a range of special events, most notably its recreations of the original Dead dinners.

History
The House stands on the ruins of a medieval school of philosophy. Built in the eighteenth century and owned by a series of grain merchants, the House has witnessed major events in Dublin's history: evidence of the execution of Robert Emmet on Thomas Street, emigration during the Great Irish Famine, the Easter Rising, and changes in wealth and demographics brought on by the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger can all be seen from the House. James Joyce's aunts, the Misses Flynn, lived in the house between *years* and cooked their famous Feast of the Epiphany each year, which Joyce immortalised in The Dead (short story).

Present Day
The House fell into disrepair in the twentieth century. Its foundations were crumbling, it lacked a roof, and it had become a shelter for squatters. Brendan Kilty acquired the House in *2000?* and has extensively restored the property. It reopened to the public in 2004, maintaining its original Victorian architecture. The House serves as a venue for numerous projects relating to Irish history and literature. *official names and summaries*

Visitors flock to the House for its history and hospitality; an Irish Times poll voted it the No. 1 Culture Night Venue in 2012. It hosts Bloomsday and Feast of the Epiphany events, plays, poetry readings and art exhibitions with the intention of providing a historically significant space to showcase contemporary Dublin culture.

Continued structural damage has necessitated another renovation of the House.

Dead Dinners
The Dead Dinners replicate, to exact detail, the meal at the centre of The Dead.

Contents
As listed in The Dead (short story): A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table and at the other end, on a bed of creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer skin and peppered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its shin and beside this was a round of spiced beef. Between these rival ends ran parallel lines of side- dishes: two little minsters of jelly, red and yellow; a shallow dish full of blocks of blancmange and red jam, a large green leaf-shaped dish with a stalk-shaped handle, on which lay bunches of purple raisins and peeled almonds, a companion dish on which lay a solid rectangle of Smyrna figs, a dish of custard topped with grated nutmeg, a small bowl full of chocolates and sweets wrapped in gold and silver papers and a glass vase in which stood some tall celery stalks. In the centre of the table there stood, as sentries to a fruit-stand which upheld a pyramid of oranges and American apples, two squat old-fashioned decanters of cut glass, one containing port and the other dark sherry. On the closed square piano a pudding in a huge yellow dish lay in waiting and behind it were three squads of bottles of stout and ale and minerals, drawn up according to the colours of their uniforms, the first two black, with brown and red labels, the third and smallest squad white, with transverse green sashes.