James Joyce left Ireland with Nora Barnacle

In October 1904, James Joyce left Ireland with Nora Barnacle, embarking on a journey that would shape the rest of their lives and literary legacy. Their first destination was Pola (in present-day Croatia), where Joyce took up a teaching position with the Berlitz School. Though their time in Pola was brief, it marked the beginning of Joyce’s self-imposed exile—a deliberate move away from the cultural and political constraints of Ireland, in search of personal freedom and creative space. Soon after, the couple relocated to Trieste, a vibrant port city in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Italy), which would become their primary home for over a decade. In Trieste, Joyce found work teaching English and became immersed in the city’s cosmopolitan atmosphere. It was here that he began work on Dubliners, continued refining A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and laid the groundwork for Ulysses. Trieste offered Joyce the cultural openness and stimulation that Ireland lacked, and though he lived far from his homeland, his writing remained deeply rooted in Dublin’s streets, voices, and memories. #MomentsOfLife #MoofLife_Moment #MoofLife #JamesJoyce #NoraBarnacle #ExileAndArt #FromDublinToTrieste #LiteraryJourney #JoyceAbroad #LifeOfAWriter