James Joyce Cultural Centre

Denis Maginni, the exuberant, flamboyant dance instructor immortalised by James Joyce in Ulysses, taught in this house. In 1982 Senator David Norris, a renowned Joycean scholar and leading gay-rights activist, bought the run-down house and restored it before opening it as a cultural centre for the study of Joyce and his books, as well as a small museum devoted to the author and his times.

There isn't much period stuff, but its absence is more than made up for by the superb interactive displays, which include three documentary films on various aspects of Joyce's life and work and – the centre's highlight – computers that allow you to explore the content of Ulysses episode by episode and Joyce's life year by year. It's enough to demolish the myth that Joyce's works are an impenetrable mystery and render him as he should be to the contemporary reader: a writer of enormous talent who sought to challenge and entertain his audience with his breathtaking wit and use of language.

Some of the fine plaster ceilings are restored originals, others careful reproductions of Michael Stapleton's designs.