***
When Brian was bringing me back from the airport and we got to Merchant's Quay we would always shout out as we approached Adam and Eve's Church the opening of Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. . .

" riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend
of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to
Howth Castle and Environs. "

And as we crawled past it we would shout out the last sentence....

"a way a lone a last a loved a long the / riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs."

The traffic snarled at us but if we used Joyce's words upon it...it would unfurl and move it move move it! We used to recite it both slow and fast...sometimes at the same time or in Jimmy Joyce's wee little Irish voice that he had on him. The traffic seemed terrified of the words and it always worked.  We always called the traffic HCE....HERE COMES EVERYONE! Ahhh...the power of literature!

After his funeral I just hadn't the heart to greet the church with the usual Joycean playfulness and remained lost in silence as we left it bewildered behind us like an old friend snubbed.

The Franciscans secretly said Mass in the Adam and Eve Tavern, where the popular name of the present church comes from.