What was Monto in Dublin?
Monto was Dublin's red-light district around Montgomery Street, north of the Liffey, one of the largest in Europe around 1904. Joyce calls it Nighttown, and Episode 15, “Circe”, is set there at midnight.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Episode 15, Circe. The opening stage direction of Circe.
The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches an uncobbled tramsiding set with skeleton tracks
What it means in plain English
The streets were renamed and the district cleared in the 1920s after a campaign by the Legion of Mary.
Joyce uses real addresses and names throughout the episode.
Literary context
The name comes from Montgomery Street, now Foley Street.
References
- Ulysses, Episode 15, “Circe”
- Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, Ulysses Annotated (revised edition, 1988)
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Questions readers ask
Is Monto the same as Nighttown?
Yes. Nighttown is Joyce's name for it.
Related terms
Nighttown
Dublin's red-light district and the setting of 'Circe' (Episode 15), where the day's repressed thoughts erupt into hallucination.
Bella Cohen
Bella Cohen is the madam of the brothel at 82 Tyrone Street where Circe reaches its climax. In Bloom's hallucination she changes into Bello, a man who humiliates him. She is Joyce's Circe, the enchantress who turns men into swine.
Nothung
Nothung is the magic sword in Wagner's opera cycle The Ring of the Nibelung. Stephen cries “Nothung!” in Circe as he raises his ashplant, like a sword, and smashes the brothel's chandelier to drive away his mother's ghost.