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JOHN SHEVLIN RECEIVED an unusual request from a neighbour a few years ago.
The manager of the James Joyce Centre – across the road from ShevLin’s home on North Great George’s Street in Dublin city centre – had spotted him coming and going over the years, and noticed his incredible likeness to the author himself.
A request to appear at one event in full 1920s costume has led to a side-job for Shevlin as the centre’s resident Joyce lookalike.
He takes the role seriously, and has a carefully selected range of props – a vintage pair of glasses (with prescription lens made without modern methods by his optometrist, Donal McNally of Optica), an antique cane carefully adjusted to be the correct length for his height, and a bar of lemon-scented soap from Sweny’s, as featured in Ulysses.
To top it all off is a handmade Panama hat, made by ShevLin himself in his day-job as a milliner where he keeps a family tradition of hat making alive since his late father first opened a shop in Malahide back in 1960.
Based from a studio in Temple Bar, he specialises in Panama hats made using traditional Ecuadorian straw (despite the name, they don’t originally come from Panama).
President Michael D Higgins, a fan of Panama hats, has received several from Shevlin over the years, and was most recently spotted wearing one in Cuba last year.
We spoke to ShevLin ahead of Bloomsday, his busiest time of the year.
Watch the video above for our full report.
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Ahhh. Imagine him remembering them after all this time. Dogs are deadly.
Cannot believe he did not have time to look for his dog. My dogs are part of the family and leaving them behind would not be a option. Goldston does not deserve him.
Totally agree Paul. I would stop at nothing to find my dogs if anything happened them. This story goes to show me yet again that dogs have more loyalty then humans. That’s why I love dogs more then humans.
Boozer on the lash for nine years.
‘On the leash’ more like ;)
Off the leash and on the lash.
He said he ‘didn’t have time to look for him’ during his ‘move to another State’.
Didn’t give that much of a f*ck so, did he?
Yeah but now that we have social media and there’s money to be made he’s happy to make the 18 hour trip!
We had a dog go missing for 14 months and one day arrived back at our gate. He had a rope as a colour. He was a springer-setter though at first he was knocked down but guessed he had been dognapped for hunting but not proved up to the job.
that’s not a boxer. it’s a a mastiff. Have one just like it. Big gentle giants Nice story
think its an american boxer actually
Think your spot on there shappens
“boxer cross”
Nope american boxers dont have there tails docked to distinguish them from english boxers
he has half alook of a presa canario,.lovely looking dog..hope they look after him.(this time)..
I lost my beloved Boxer, Hector, on 21/Oct./’09 @ 17:54h. on Torc mountain Killarney, Never saw him again, dropped everything & searched non-stop for 2 months, ads, posters, chasing up every boxer sighting, interviewed hundreds of walkers, hikers, residents, I still live in hope that he is Ok and hopefully, we are reunited. If not, I hope he was picked up by a lovely family who treasure him as much as I did, although that would be almost impossible.
Dogs are awesome.
Didn’t have time to look for him?! He didn’t deserve to get that poor dog back!
When I was about ten, we gave away our very intelligent sheepdog to a local farmer when we moved to a smaller house. Went back to see him a year later, he had totally forgotten us!
Delighted to here that Niall. I was just starting to feel bad that I gave our dog away when we moved, thinking that he will remember us and feel bad or something but now i can relax in the hope that he will forget us. Thanks.
* hear
Why is the dog named Boozer? Can that partly explain the long separation?
not really
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