The Joyces finally arrived in Zurich on 17 December 1940 exhausted after weeks of torturous negotiations with the German, Vichy-French and Swiss authorities. They had sought refuge in Switzerland during World War I, now they hoped to do so again. To add to the stress of it all they had to leave their daughter Lucia behind in a psychiatric hospital in Brittany which was behind German lines. Joyce hoped that once settled in Zurich he could use all the influence he could muster to have her follow them to safety.
They were not in good shape. Nora was limping with arthritis, Joyce was frail and wracked with stomach cramps, while Georgio (separated from his wife Helen Kastor, a wealthy American who had returned to her home country suffering from mental depression ), was accompanied by his eight years old son Stephen.* All their money, the royalties on Joyce’s books, personal documents and letters had been left behind in their Paris apartment. Joyce's final book, Finnegans Wake, a linguistic tour-de-force, was published by Faber and Faber in London in May, the year before. It had left friends and critics baffled. Reviews had initially been poor, which had depressed Joyce.
As Christmas approached, Joyce bought his grandson Stephen a small artificial Christmas tree with artificial snow on it. On Christmas Day they went to celebrate with old friends Carola Giedion-Welcker and her husband. Joyce sat at the head of the table wearing the waistcoat embroidered with the heads of dogs and stags that he had inherited from his great grand-father, and that he wore only on special occasions. With Georgio they sang together some secular and religious songs in Irish and Latin, and they all listened to a recording of John McCormack singing ‘Moon of My Delight’. According to Carola, ‘It was a gentle song, dreamy and twi-lit, reminiscent of Joyce’s early lyrics.’ It was also one of Joyce’s favourites and he had given her this recording of it some years before.
A few days later Joyce invited them to a restaurant on Kreuzplatz where Carola remembered that, ‘in this rustic wood-paneled room the old wanderer, sitting in front of a carafe of golden Fendant, seemed to inhale Swiss stability, while outside was the chaos of world events.’
On January 13 1941, Joyce was dead just weeks before his fifty-ninth birthday. He had been operated on for a perforated ulcer the day before. Nora wanted to remain with him that night, but she was told he would be fine, to go home and get some rest. Before he died Joyce asked for her.
‘Utterly hostile’
Once again the tireless and generous Harriet Shaw Weaver reached out to the now depleted Joyce family, and despite the difficulty sending money to Switzerland during the war, sent £250 to cover Joyce’s funeral expenses. Joyce financial affairs on his death, were as chaotic as usual, but he had appointed Ms Weaver his literary executrix probably because he knew that if anyone could make sense of his financial situation she could.
Universities and libraries were now eager for Joyce’s manuscripts and letters, and again thanks to the generosity of friends some money was forthcoming to Nora, who was becoming virtually a cripple due to her arthritis.
Nora had shared her late husband’s sense of betrayal by Ireland, and the hurts, real or imagined, that Ireland had heaped upon them. When Seán MacBride, minister for external affairs, wrote to her suggesting that she donate the Finnegans Wake manuscripts to the National Library of Ireland he added an encouraging note ‘that the Irish Government was proud to claim James Joyce one of the greatest Europeans of his time.’
But in the autumn of 1950 Nora’s condition deteriorated rapidly, and Georgio, who was constantly by her side, took over the negotiations concerning the Irish Government. He probably reflected his mother’s view when he told Ms Weaver that both he and his mother were ‘utterly hostile to Dublin’, and they preferred that the Wake manuscript be sent to the British Museum.
By early spring Nora was seriously ill. Thankfully sufficient funds were now available to have her admitted to the Paracelsus clinic, one of the best hospitals in Zurich. She died on April 10 1951. Georgio wired Ms Weaver: ‘Mother died this morning’. The long journey from Bowling Green was over.
Michael Healy
Joyce was particularly close to his daughter Lucia, and her gradual decline into severe schizophrenia from her mid twenties was a major blow to him. He brought her to a succession of doctors, even to Carl Jung, but there was no cure. She had been a talented performer, linguist and choreographer. In one of her good spells, he encouraged her to illustrate a limited collection of his poems ‘Pomes Penyeach’ which contains the only poem Joyce wrote about Nora and Galway: She weeps over Rahoon.
Joyce wrote this poem after his visit to Galway with Nora and the children in the summer 1912. He imagines that he and Nora are standing in Rahoon Cemetery mourning at the grave of Michael Sunny Bodkin, the young man who loved Nora, who stood in her garden on a wet, winter’s night, while he was already suffering from tuberculosis. It is the theme for Joyce's most admired short story The Dead, in Dubliners.
The collection of poems was not published until 1927; and later he sent the copy, with what he called ‘extremely beautiful’ lettering designed and illustrated by Lucia, to the library at NUIG. In a handwritten covering letter to John Howley Joyce wrote: ‘I wish to offer a copy to your library not only because the designer of the letterings is a grand-daughter of your city and the writer of these verses bears one of its tribal names, but also as a small acknowledgement of the great debt of gratitude to Mr Michael Healy himself for his kindness and courtesy during so many years.’**
NOTES: * Stephen Joyce was sent for, and taken to America by has mother and educated there. He returned to Paris, married and worked in the OECD until his retirement. He held on firmly to his grandfather’s estate, and became notorious for his numerous lawsuits, or threats of legal action against scholars, biographers and artists attempting to quote from Joyce’s works and correspondence, without his permission; and even if he granted permission, he did so sparingly. When the Central Bank of Ireland reproduced Joyce’s image on a 10 euro coin in 2013, he called it ‘one of the greatest insults that had ever been perpetuated on the Joyce family’. He was right. The image was appalling, and the quote from Ulysses was incorrect.
However, he and his wife Solange, twice visited the Nora Barnacle home at Bowling Green which he loved. He spoke fondly of his grandmother Nora. He was grateful to Mary and Sheila Gallagher who saved the property from falling into ruin. Stephen, 87 years old, died in January of this year. His wife predeceased him. He was the last direct descendent of James Joyce.
** Michael Healy was Nora’s uncle, who had shown kindness to Nora even as a child, and had accommodated them during their holiday. He had kept in touch with Joyce through the years.
Again Ms Weaver’s generosity saw her become Lucia’s guardian, and looked after her needs as best she could. Lucia was transferred to St Andrew’s Hospital, Northampton, UK, where she remained until her death on December 12 1982.
My thanks this week to the James Joyce Centre Dublin, Nora - A Biography of Nora Joyce by Brenda Maddox, and the presentation to NUIG from Joyce County - Galway and James Joyce, by Ray Burke, published by Curragh Press, 2016.
