I dropped in to Sweny’s chemist today to buy some Lemons soap wrapped in brown paper and twine and would recommend anyone visiting the Westland row, Dublin area to do the same, it is a curiosity shop full of all things old and interesting from soap to original wooden drawers and shelves full of bottles and everything you would find in a chemist of its day.
Leopold Bloom, one of the main character's in Ulysses, stopped off at Sweny's pharmacy on December 16, 1904, to purchase a bar of lemon soap for his wife Molly. The shop has survived since 1853, despite four separate fires, with its original sign still hanging over the door and its mahogany fittings intact.
"The interior has survived…. It has the original shop fittings and the counters, so if you go in there you can feel how Bloom felt on Bloomsday. It's the only commercial interior that's unchanged since Ulysses."
The shop is run on a voluntary basis and relies on donations from visitors dropping in to help pay the rent.
" Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils.Sweet lemony wax.
-I'll take this one, he said."
Ulysses, J. Joyce ( 1922 )
