Latest fire further damages Joycean building and injures tenant

One of the remaining landmarks of James Joyce's Dublin is under threat after suffering four fires since the summer.

Sweny's Chemist on Lincoln Place, where the fictional Leopold Bloom stopped to purchase a bar of lemon soap in Ulysses, narrowly escaped destruction in the most recent fire last weekend, which badly damaged the upper floors of the protected structure.

A 73-year-old long-term tenant who lived upstairs was seriously injured in the fire. Mr Noel McLachlann remains in a critical condition in St James's Hospital.

The deterioration in the building was raised in the Seanad yesterday. Joycean scholar and Senator David Norris said it looked to him as if it was being neglected and left open to vandalism.

The site was known to Joyceans the world over, he said. Its condition would raise questions in the minds of the many visitors expected for next year's centenary of Bloomsday about how we protected this sort of landmark building.

A spokeswoman for Dublin City Council said yesterday it had "grave concerns" about the condition of the building. She said the owner, Mr Thomas Anderson, with an address at Ward Anderson, Upper Abbey Street, had failed to cooperate with council officials.

In May, officials of the city architect's office notified the owner of their concern about the building. When no response was received, a notice was sent to the owner telling him to take action to prevent the building becoming endangered.

After it failed to get a response to this notice, the council said it took proceedings in the District Court to order the owner to cooperate. Mr Anderson then failed to turn up for an inspection on November 27th.

Mr Anderson could not be contacted for comment yesterday.

Sweny's remained open yesterday although it had no electric power and customers were being served by candlelight. Ms Martina Quinn, who has operated the shop for the past 27 years with her sister Carmel, said they were living in constant fear of another fire.

"Only a metal door on the store of chemicals, many of them highly inflammable, saved the building from a conflagration this time. I don't think it will survive another fire," she said.

Ms Quinn said she had asked for a report on two of the earlier fires but had received no response. "I've been complaining to the city council about the state of this place for 20 years but it's useless." As for the Joyceans who frequent her shop, she said: "They come in and buy their lemon soap and say to us 'Don't let it go'. But all of this goes over their heads."

The building dates from the 1830s and has been a chemist's since 1853. Its shopfront and mahogany timber fittings are the same as they were on the day Leopold "bought" a cake of lemon-scented soap there for his wife on June 16th, 1904.