A nice old town commented James Joyce

At the beginning of the 20th century, Feldkirch was a quiet, if not sleepy little town. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle was a bit more exact and described Feldkirch as a place in a green valley, below arched hills and a thousand feet below the Arlberg pass.

Both Conan-Doyle as a student and musician and Joyce as an author spent some time in Feldkirch. "I make music here on the "Bombenhorn", this is a perfect training for my lungs", that´s what Conan-Doyle, the young inventor of Sherlock-Holmes reported home about his studies in the well-known Jesuit college "Stella Matutina". By the way, Leo Naphta, in Thomas Mann´s famous work "Zauberberg" (The Magic Mountain) studied at the same college.

Specials to know...

The student, Arthur Conan Doyle preferred to stroll through mountains surrounding the town or walk along the river Ill to the Rhine, On the other hand, James Joyce, went to the railroad station almost every day, to listen to the passengers. Some of what he could understand from the difficult Alemannian dialect can be found in "Finnegans Wake". "Over on those tracks there", he said one evening, "the fate of Ulysses was decided in 1915." He referred to the fact that in this Austrian border town he had almost been prevented by some jinx from crossing into Switzerland during the First World War

"A beautiful old town", stated James Joyce.

The town surely was quite contemplative at the beginning of this century. Arthur Conan Doyle was a little bit more exact and depicted Feldkirch in a green valley under arced hills and thousand feet under the Arlberg pass.


Both poets are Irish and spent between both world-wars some time in Feldkirch, and placed milestones there. Joyce as a poet, Conan Doyle as a student and musician. " I make music here on the "Bombenhorn". This is a perfect training for my lungs", told the young Sherlock-Holmes-father of his studies in the well-known Jesuit college "Stella Matutina" at home. In the same college Thomas Mann let Leo Naphta study in his work "Zauberberg.


While the student Arthur Conan Doyle prefered to stroll through the near mountains or along the river Ill to the Rhine, James Joyce went to the station to listen to the passengers quite every day. What he could understand from the difficult Alemannian dialect is written down in "Finnegans Wake". "Over there on the rails in 1915 the destiny of the "Ulysses" found its conclusion." he told during his lucky emigration to the Switzerland in remembrance of a szene taken place at the station in Feldkirch.

The Montfort town between the times