Early Joyceans in Dublin

Early Joyceans in Dublin VIVIEN VEALE IGOE Today is the golden jubilee of Bloomsday and a fitting occasion on which to pay Ireland’s respects to James Joyce and his work. Only time will prove whether or not Ulysses is one of the world’s great novels. . . . He [ Joyce] has received from Ireland less than the official honour to which he is entitled. However, there are signs that this state of affairs is changing , and that as time passes, more domestic recognition may come his way. When the hundredth anniversary of Bloomsday comes around, Leopold Bloom either may be forgotten, or may stand in stony effigy as high as Nelson stands today. Irish Times, 16 June 1954 In the spring of 1954, it was thought that the 50th anniversary of Bloomsday, which marked the golden jubilee year, should be celebrated in Dublin. A meeting was held at which the Dublin Joyce Society was founded. The original council members comprised of Niall Montgomery, John Garvin, C.P. Curran, Lennox Robinson, Seamus Kelly, Myles na gCopaleen [Brian O’Nolan] and Sam Suttle. A transient American, Ernie Anderson, who had spent a great many years in Europe, was included because he was one of the few who had ever come to Dublin without claiming that he knew Joyce well in his Paris days! Five of Dublin’s literati, including the writers Anthony Cronin, John Ryan, Myles na gCopaleen, the poet Patrick Kavanagh and Tom Joyce, hired out two horse-drawn cabs for the journey “at a time when it was neither popular or profitable” to quote Myles. The weather was similar to that on 16 June 1904, “mainly cloudy, but with sunny intervals.” This was the first ever Bloomsday pilgrimage. In Kavanagh ’s words, Joyce Studies Annual, Volume 12, Summer 2001© 2001 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, Texas 78713-7819 82 early joyceans in dublin I made the pilgrimage In the Bloomsday swelter From the Martello Tower To the cabby’s shelter. After the event, according to Seamus Kelly, the Dublin Joyce Society went into a limbo where it remained until January 1960. Kelly was on a visit to John Huston in Craughwell, in Co. Galway where Huston was recovering from the impact of a visitor named Jean-Paul Sartre . Huston asked Kelly what had happened to the Joyce Society and when Kelly replied that nothing had happened since 1954, Huston suggested that the Martello Tower in Sandycove should be made into a Joyce Museum. Discussions ensued between Kelly and Michael Scott, owner of the Tower, and soon most of the old Joyce Society members were back in action, plus a few new ones. Huston donated a generous cheque and appeals were sent out for funds to have the Tower rehabilitated. In time, books and Joyce memorabilia were given or loaned to begin the Museum’s collection. In June 1960 Sylvia Beach made her first visit to the tower before visiting the Aran Islands. After she had climbed the spiral staircase to reach the parapet, Kelly heard her remark, “When you think of those fellows climbing that, and so drunk most of the time, I don’t know how they did it. . . .” Reminiscing on the parapet, she spoke to Kelly about Joyce and said “Sometimes some little professor would write about him, and he [ Joyce] would be angry at all the mistakes . . . but he liked Gilbert and Gorman. . . . He hated asking favors, and he never cow-towed.” Sylvia Beach returned to Dublin on 16 June 1962 for the 58th anniversary of Bloomsday and hoisted the blue flag of Munster with its three golden crowns, to mark the official opening of the Martello Tower in Sandycove as a Joyce Museum. In an interview Miss Beach said she was the one who created the name of Bloomsday and “all these American professors use it and it is the only thing I ever thought of and then they don’t attribute it to me.” A reception followed in the Tower and over a hundred guests attended. Present were May Monaghan and Eileen Schaurek, sisters of James Joyce. Maria Jolas, the widow of Joyce’s friend in...