The President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, unveiled a plaque recognising writer James Joyce's connection with Galway last week.
Last Saturday, President Higgins attended a ceremony hosted by Mayor Eddie Hoare at Rahoon Cemetery where the new stone memorial to Sonny Bodkin is located. It marked the 110th anniversary of Joyce’s classic short story The Dead.
Michael ‘Sonny’ Bodkin, who died of TB as a young man, was the doomed former lover of Joyce’s Galwegian wife Nora Barnacle. She inspired much of Joyce’s work.
Bodkin is thought to be the inspiration for the character Michael Furey in The Dead, which is often referred to as a classic of 20th century fiction.
In one telling of Bodkin’s love for Nora Barnacle, he left his sickbed to sing outside Nora’s window when he heard she was leaving Galway for Dublin where she soon after met the young Joyce on June 16, 1904. He caught a chill that night and died.
In his arresting poem She Weeps Over Rahoon, Joyce wrote: “Sad is his voice that calls me, sadly calling. At grey moonrise.”
