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“Araby” opens with the narrator, an unnamed boy, describing North Richmond Street. North Richmond is a blind street, also known as a dead-end street, which means that the road is only accessible from one side. The exterior of the houses on North Richmond are described as being “brown” and somber but containing “decent lives” within—except, that is, for the empty two-story house at the blind end. The young narrator reflects that North Richmond is a quiet street for the majority of the day. The only exception is the hour after the Christian Brothers' School ends and the boys are sent home. The boys take over North Richmond on their way home from school and transform the sleepy street into their own personal playground. For that brief hour, the street becomes their domain.
The narrator thinks about his home’s previous tenant while reflecting on his childhood street. He recalls that his home used to be the residence of a priest who died in the back drawing-room. The priest was a charitable man who, upon his death, donated all of his money to various institutions and all of his furniture to his sister. Three damp books (The Abbot, The Devout Communicant, and The Memoirs of Vidocq) from the waste room behind the kitchen and a rusty bicycle pump next to the apple tree in the backyard are the only traces of the priest that the narrator was able to find.
Our young narrator also reflects on the games that he and his friends like to play. He explains that he and his friends like to run about on North Richmond Street, both in the road and in the backyards of various houses, no matter the weather. The narrator recalls how all the boys on North Richmond Street play outside even in the dead of winter and do not come inside until their bodies practically “glow” from the cold. Much of their play involves spying on and, when necessary, dodging the older members of their community. The narrator and his friends run through various backyards and hide in the shadows when they reach the street again, hoping to avoid people in the neighborhood—especially the narrator’s uncle. However, while the narrator goes out of his way to avoid most of the older people on North Richmond Street, he is always keen to gaze at his friend Mangan’s sister. Mangan’s sister often comes to the front of their house to call her brother to tea while the boys are playing, a moment that the narrator savors. He is mesmerized by the girl and gazes, enraptured, at the way the glow from the doorway illuminates her figure and the way her dress, body, and hair swing from side to side as she moves through the yard.
