The Irish Literacy Studies Web Portal, at Washington and Lee University offers a wide range of resources in Irish Literary Studies.  The heart of the site is the searchable database of over 3,000 images, audio and video files, and Quicktime VR files of Ireland .  This database includes images of numerous Irish literary sites, sites of Irish antiquity and history, Irish landscape and architecture, and much more.  The next phase of the portal is to augment the literary and historical material within the database through "Virtual Joyce:  The Geography of Ulysses" – an element that will propel the web portal into the very forefront of scholarly activity in Irish Studies that employs web-based technologies.

Dr. Conner proposes to photography in a detailed and copious manner as many sites mentioned in Ulysses as possible, using digital camera technology, as well as Quicktime VR technology for panoramic shots.  In addition, he will use GPS technology to note the actual physical location of these sites and of characters’ progression from one site to another in the course of the book.  He will then prepare an annotated visual guide to Ulysses, with images corresponding to each important event in each of the book’s 18 chapters, and clear annotations explaining the significance of the site in relation to the action, theme, and motif of the novel.  This will accompany a detailed series of maps that lay out the overarching topography of the novel, as well as many of the crucial “mini-walks” that characters undergo throughout the book.  The result will be a unique resource to aid in the teaching and reading of this book, in which readers of all levels will be able to see the actual geography of Joyce’s epic, and get a sense of how the characters move through and respond to this intricately, densely realized world.

Over time, this Web Portal will continue to expand and be of increasing use to all people interested in Irish Studies, Irish Literature, Irish History, and travel throughout Ireland .  Simply put, there is nothing else out there like this web portal in the field, and Washington and Lee University, with assistance provided by the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges, has an opportunity to put Washington and Lee even more on the map of being on the cutting edge of the uses of digital technologies in an international, interdisciplinary humanities field.