[No surviving envelope]
I must start this letter tonight, though there is so much to say that I cannot hope to finish it till tomorrow night at least; but meanwhile you should have received my wire from Dublin, and my second wire on returning to London. But first of all I want to say, that when I go away my chief thought on starting my journey back, is whether I shall find a letter from you. The next thing to running to you with outstretched arms, is to run to a letter lying on my table. I found your dear letter of January 13th waiting for me when I got to Grenville Place at 7.45 this morning; and after my bath and while I was having breakfast, your next letter of the 16th from Manchester Connecticut arrived. So that this was a very rich and rewarding return, and I read them both over several times during the morning.
Firsttravels, trips and plansTSE's 1936 visit to Ireland;c1recounted;a2 of all, the News part of my letter. I had a very comfortable passage on the Liverpool boat, breakfasted on it, took a taxi at North Wall, Dublin, and, after stopping at the post office to cable you, arrivedCoffey, Dr Denis J.;a1 at the Coffeys in Fitzwilliam Square. I was greeted by Mrs. Coffey and the second son Donough, who is a barrister; later by Dr. Coffey (President of the National or Catholic University) and the daughter Moira. A little later the young Jesuit who had asked me to come to speak arrived; I discussed with him what I was to say that evening, and then he took me for a walk about Dublin, visiting the Government buildings and Trinity College etc. Then back to find that Mr. Coffey had arranged an elaborate and large lunch party, all of men (that couldn’t happen in England – if a man was having a lunch for men only, he would arrange it at his club) mostly university folk – that is to say, the Catholic University. IIrelandTSE on Irish hospitality;a2 observe that the Irish, however poor – and mostly they are poor – when they give parties do so most lavishly. Cocktails, sherry, sauterne, burgundy, port, brandy and cigars: too much. IMacNeill, Eóinrelates experiences of prison;a1 satCarson, Edward;a1 next to a charming old professor, Euen MacNeill, who had charming reminiscences of his experiences in gaol – they have all been in gaol at one time or another, and are very charming about it – MacNeill started the Irish Volunteers, in opposition to Carson’s Ulster Volunteers.1 The lunch lasted till about four, when I was able to go up to my room and take a nap; then I dressed (white tie) for a family dinner, and we went to the College for the meeting. ThisIrelandTSE's experience of Irish audiences;a3 lasted from eight till nearly twelve, there were so many speakers: I must say that the Irish can listen more patiently and for a longer time to speeches than any other people. That is because every speech has its political implications. After that, more people to meet, and back to bed about two. The next morning I crawled out to breakfast at ten, and after that interviewed two reporters, Miss Fitzgibbon and Mr. Murphy, andLaverty, Maura;a1 at much greater length Miss Laverty of the Broadcasting Station, with a view to a dialogue between herself and the Distinguished Visitor (myself ) to take place on Saturday evening.2 ThenFitzgerald, Desmondat Dublin literary lunch;a1 offO'Connor, Frank;a1 toGogarty, Oliver St. Johnat Dublin literary lunch;a1 Jammet’s the fashionable French restaurant on Stephen’s Green, toPakenham, Edward, 6th Earl of Longfordand TSE's 1936 Dublin visit;a2 lunch with Desmond Fitzgerald,3 Dr. Gogerty [sic] (a famous wit of Dublin, made illustrious through being the original of ‘Buck Mulligan’ in Ulysses)4 the Earl of Longford, and Frank O’Connor, a prominent young novelist.5 After'Tradition and the Practice of Poetry'Dublin version of;a1 lunch, returned to the Coffeys and rested a bit, but had to be at the College again at four, to deliver my lecture on ‘The Relation of Contemporary Literatures’.6 This over, and introductions to new people, returned to rest a bit and dress again (formally) for a large dinner party at the Coffeys, which began at eight and ended at one. Being Friday, three different and elaborate fish courses. Think of me among the Riordans and the Doolans and the MacCorvilles and the Tierneys, in full evening dress! thenTrench, Wilbraham Fitzjohnand the Book of Kells;a1 on Saturday morning, I was called for by Professor Trench of Trinity College,7 to show me the whole of the Book of Kells (ordinary visitors only see two pages at a time); thenCurran, Constantine Peter ('C. P.');a1 backRussell, William George ('Æ')being exhibited in Dublin;a1 in time to be called for by Mr. Con Curran8 to take me to see a show of paintings by the late George Russell,9 thence to the Hogans for lunch; and then taken by car by the Hogan brothers and Con P. Curran into the Wicklow hills to Glendaloch to see the seventh century churches and cemetaries [sic] (in the rain).10 Back just in time to get to the Post Office to see the dialogue which Miss Laverty had made out of our conversation – I am sending it to you. You will notice that Miss Laverty has put my remarks into her own language, and that she has attributed some remarks to me which were her own thoughts. While broadcasting I tried to translate back into my own vocabulary, but got rather flustered towards the end.11 The whole piece about Censorship had to be skipped, which was just as well. AfterFitzgerald, Desmondentertains TSE in Ireland;a2 that Desmond Fitzgerald was waiting for me, and motored me out to his home in Bray (a distant suburb by the sea) where I had dinner quietly with his wife and sons; andÓ’Faoláin, Seánappears at Desmond Fitzgerald dinner;a1 afterMontgomery, Niall;a1 dinnerMacDonagh, Donaghat Desmond Fitzgerald dinner;a1 severalDevlin, Denis;a1 people came in: the Longfords, Sean O’Faoloin [sic],12 Neil Montgomery,13 Donagh Mac Donagh [sic],14 Denis Devlin (a quiet and charming young poet)15 and a few others. Then the Longfords motored me back to Dublin, and I got to bed about two o’clock. On Sunday, crept down to breakfast about half-past nine, andalcoholGuinness before Mass;b7 found young Moira Coffey (rather pretty and smart) drinking a glass of Guinness’s stout as a preparation to taking me to Mass at the University Church. Irish people, to do honour to guests, always take them about in some vehicle, even when the destination is within walking distance; old Dr. Coffey has a horror of motors, because at the beginning of the century someone who had bought a motor car took him out in it and had an accident; so we went in a very ancient cab driven by an old man named Healey, who apparently has no other customer than Dr. Coffey. After Mass, we were picked up by Mr. and Mrs. MacCorville (only Mr. MacC has been in gaol, Mrs. hasn’t) who drove us (myself, Moira and Donagh Coffey) out through the Wicklow hills to the Kilcroney County Club (i.e. golf club) where we had the largest cocktail I ever saw, and drove back to the Coffeys in time for lunch. ThereMurder in the Cathedral1936 University College, Dublin student production;e3;a1 the only guest was a Father Burke, an intelligent and educated priest whom I liked. But lunch lasted till 3.30, and then we had to get ready for the performance to be given by the students in my honour, of ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ at 4, in the college. The performance began pretty promptly, for Ireland, but there was a very long tea interval, whichPlunkett, George Noblepresents TSE with his poems;a1 enabled everybody to talk to everybody, and the venerable Count Plunkett,16 whose son was shot in the 1916 uprising, presented me with his book of poems, and I signed my name a good many times, andRyan, James;a1 met the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Ryan,17 and the Minister of Finance in the last government; so the performance was not over until nearly seven. Then we went back quietly to the Coffeys for a cold supper, and they motored me to the dock at Dun Laoghaire (pronounced ‘Leary’) to the boat.
That’sIrelandin general;a4 a brief statement of events, but I can hardly begin to put into words all I have to say about Ireland. I think that everything that has ever been said about Ireland, good and bad, is true. Anything may be true in Ireland. I have never met with such complete and thoughtful hospitality, yet there was never any really hot water, and I did not get a proper bath the whole time. There is an enormous fire blazing in your bedroom however late you are, but the hot water bottle is cold. The banquets are magnificent – everyone in full dress, and the table shining with silver (possibly borrowed) and many courses and many wines; yet they will put up some cheap calendar on the wall: some impressive piece of furniture may be dangerously mended with paste and string, and door handles tend to come off in your hands. Motor cars are unreliable; most of them often have to be cranked. However they hate the English in principle, they are not only hospitable to the individual, but even deferential. They are unhappy and disillusioned, yet gay and irresponsible. I began to feel irresponsible myself – nothing seems to matter. The society is so mixed that you cannot at all classify people as in England. I was fascinated by it. ThereEnglandthe English;c1compared to the Irish;b6 is one great difference. TheIrelandthe Irish compared to the English;a5 English, for the most part, have small morality and no religion, but they are kept in order by good form. The Irishman has no good form whatever. He is very religious, but if his religion goes, everything goes. Here is an example.
IEsmonde, Sir Osmund Thomas Grattantransformed since TSE's Oxford days;a1 was lunching with Fitzgerald and Longford and the others, as I mentioned, at the most fashionable restaurant in Dublin. As we were going out, I was stopped by a man who had been sitting by himself at a table near the door. I was rather startled, because he was a bloated middle-aged man, with several days beard, a blotched face, a bleary eye, supporting himself on a stick, dirty, dressed in rags of torn clothes. He was obviously drunk from the night before and busy getting drunk again. HeOxford UniversityTSE's student literary club at;a8 asked me whether I was T. S. Eliot, and reminded me that we had been members of a literary club at Oxford, and did I remember any of the other men, he couldn’t think of their names etc. I gradually realised, with some horror, that he was a man named Sir Osmund Grattan-Esmonde Bt.,18 of an old and wealthy Irish Catholic family. At Oxford, he had been a dandy and an aesthete, and a brilliant speaker. He had then, I believe, been active in Nationalist politics: but here he was, gone completely to the devil. That is the sort of thing that can happen in Ireland. If an Englishman sank as low as that, he would avoid previous acquaintances, he would certainly not present himself in a conspicuous restaurant in London. But the Irish have no sense of respectability. And there is something to be said for it. IWolcott, Rogersmugly respectable;a6 thoughtLowell, Abbott Lawrencesmugly respectable;a7 that IAmericaBoston, Massachusetts;d1its society;b3 should like a few people like Roger Wolcott and Lawrence Lowell,19 and a lot of damned smug Bostonians, to meet an Irishman like Ozzie Esmonde, and be asked by God whether they thought themselves better men than he at the Last Judgment.
I foundIrelandits politics;a6 myself in the centre of local politics, and to some extent being made use of in them. The Irish are now more or less independent politically, but that alone does not bring prosperity, and they are depressed and disillusioned. The government is in a difficult position between conservatives and radicals, the farmers unhappy because they have to pay taxes, and pretty heavy ones, as in the old days; the outlet of emigration is stopped; and the discontented elements tend to be revolutionary. The government has to conciliate the clergy, who are mostly good pious folk, and the narrowest-minded in the world. The present discontent of the young literary folk (and literary people are important in Ireland) centres about the censorship of books, which is narrowly clerical, the encouragement of the Irish (they naturally want to write in English, because they are little read at home, however patriotic they are, and their public is in England and America), and the insistence upon orthodoxy. They were annoyed that when I was asked to speak, there were no representatives of Irish literature asked to speak too, but only priests and professors. (I am sending you separately the programme, Fr. Savage’s address, my reply, and my lecture the next day). HoweverYeats, William Butler ('W. B.')defended at UCD;b7, they were on the whole immensely pleased with my defense of Yeats, andJoyce, Jamesdefended by TSE at UCD;c3 my remarks about Joyce, who otherwise would never have been mentioned at all! When I began to speak of the latter, there was a great burst of applause from about half of the audience, and silence on the part of the other. That was considered very daring; and I was considered very wily because of my insistence upon Joyce’s essential Catholicism, and his Jesuit education: which did somewhat take the wind out of the sails of the other party.20 (I also send my broadcast talk, to amuse you. Miss Laverty not only wrote down what I did say, in her own language, but put into my mouth several notions of her own). The lecture the next day also seemed to please them.
TheMurder in the Cathedral1936 University College, Dublin student production;e3described by TSE;a2 performance of ‘Murder’ was most interesting, and did them credit. None of the young people had seen the London performance, or consulted anyone in England; so it was entirely their own conception. The producer took the part of the Archbishop as well, so that he did not know his lines; and the knights also stumbled and garbled very badly. But the fourth tempter was brilliant. What especially struck me was the work of the chorus; because this was in some respects much finer than that of Miss Fogerty’s girls. There were six girls; they were dressed alike, very simply, in black dresses with grey shawls and aprons, and both in dress and in movement managed to give the effect of old women such as you may see in Dublin streets to-day. It was most effective. They wisely did not attempt any elaborate partitioning of lines, but spoke mostly either altogether, or in sets of three antiphonally. The Irish voice also has a harshness (as well as a softness) which was very suitable. One did not think of them as refined young ladies, though they were the college girls of Dublin, but as what they pretended to be. I think that the Irish middleclass person is much nearer to the peasant that the corresponding person in England, and so can reproduce such things more vitally. That nearness to the present [sic] is what one would expect in a society which is mostly agricultural and very poor.
On the other hand, there were ways in which the Irish temperament failed to bring out a good deal. I think it may be that the Irish temperament is less complex, at any rate different. Everything was either extremely serious or comic, mostly the former: all those shades intermediate or blended between the serious and the comic, that part of the emotional scale so much used in England, were missed out, giving an effect of crudity, although of great intensity. I felt that had I been less tired and beset I might have learned more from it, of the difference between the Irish and English; or I could have done by seeing it repeated.
January 29th.
HereGeorge Vhis funeral;a3 I must stop this letter after all. I wasted a good deal of yesterday morning by going to a Requiem for the King at All Saints and finding when I got there that I had misread the card and the Requiem is tomorrow. IMorrell, Lady Ottolinedebriefed on Ireland;f9 have had to have tea with Otto to talk about Ireland, andCamerons, theremoved from Oxford to London;a1 dined with the Camerons last night: they have come to live in Regents Park and given up their house in Oxford. AndSave the Children FundTSE's speech for;a1 tomorrow night there is a remainder of the speaking tasks I undertook in the autumn – to say a few words on behalf of the ‘Save the Children Fund’. I shall write again on Friday. Meanwhile, my dearest, I thank you for your two letters, of which I shall say more. I will only say this now, that I want you to be reconciled to the thought of having me sometimes kneel at your feet, because that attitude represents something of my feeling towards you that is essential and that cannot be expressed in any other physical position. BesidesHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9EH kissed on the right foot;e6, I love your foot, and to kiss it has a special symbolism, because you have to take off your stocking to let me kiss it, and that is a kind of special act of consent. But now I leave a kiss on your throat and neck and shoulders for you to take to sleep with you tonight.
Sweet Love, my Emilie. I am missing you terribly.
1.EóinMacNeill, Eóin MacNeill (1867–1945); scholar; Gaelic nationalist politician, co-founder of the Gaelic League; Minister for Education, 1922–35. He served too in other public and governmental roles.From 1908, Professor of Early Irish History, University College Dublin.
EdwardCarson, Edward Carson, Baron Carson (1854–1935), Irish Unionist politician, barrister and judge, organised the Irish Volunteers in order to secure military resistance to Home Rule, 1912–14.
2.MauraLaverty, Maura Laverty (1907–66), author, journalist and broadcaster, who worked for Radió Teilifis Éireann, interviewed TSE on Sat., 25 Jan.
3.DesmondFitzgerald, Desmond Fitzgerald (1888–1947), Irish Nationalist politician; poet. See Letters 4; Karl O’Hanlon in the Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/desmond-fitzgerald-on-ts-eliot-a-revolutionary-taste-in-poetry-1.4438458.
4.OliverGogarty, Oliver St. John St John Gogarty (1878–1957), Irish poet, author, politician and conversationalist.
5.FrankO'Connor, Frank O’Connor (1903–66), distinguished Irish novelist, playwright and short-story writer; his works include Collected Stories (1981); An Only Child (autobiography, 1961); and a fine translation (1945) of the seventeenth-century satire The Midnight Court, by Brian Merriman.
6.This lecture – given at University College Dublin, on 24 Jan. 1936 – was first published posthumously under the title ‘Tradition and the Practice of Poetry’: see CProse 5, 300–10.
7.WilbrahamTrench, Wilbraham Fitzjohn Fitzjohn Trench (1873–1939), Professor of English Literature, Trinity College Dublin.
8.C. P. (ConstantineCurran, Constantine Peter ('C. P.') Peter) Curran (1880–1972), contemporary and friend of Joyce at Trinity College Dublin; lawyer and historian of eighteenth-century Dublin art and architecture; author of James Joyce Remembered (1968).
9.WilliamRussell, William George ('Æ') George Russell, known by the cipher Æ (1867–1935), writer, critic, poet, painter.
10.YearsLittle Giddingand TSE's St. Kevin's cave excursion;a2n later, when TSE received a fan-letter from Curran, he responded, 4 May 1960: ‘It is a particularly pleasant reminder of a very happy visit to Dublin in the far-away days before the war when you took me to the exhibition of A. E.’s paintings and when we went to see St Kevin’s cave (to which I later referred in a poem called “Little Gidding” [I, 35–7]) with the Hogans.’ St Kevin’s Cave is at lake Glendalough in County Wicklow, where St Kevin set up a hermitage: it is still the site of pilgrimage.
11.TSE’swritingand routine;a1 remarks, broadcast on RTE on Sat., 25 Jan., included: ‘I feel that steady application is even more important to an author than is genius. Most well-known writers, you will find, plan their day in a methodical way. There have been exceptions, of course – notably Balzac, whose best work was done during periods of literary frenzy when he would lock himself into his study for days and nights at a time, emerging only when the frenzy had subsided and the work was completed. In spite of such exceptions, I maintain that a regular system in writing is better and more productive than spasmodic eruptions of genius. <This steady, regular application is not possible to poets, however.> In my opinion, a writer should turn to poetry with a fresh eager mind and this is possible only if he treats his poetry as a side-issue and not as a profession. Only in this way will he avoid staleness.’
Of his role as editor of the Criterion: ‘Reading poetry is something like tea-tasting. After reading a certain amount one’s palate, to a great extent, loses the powers of sensitive discrimination, and one is likely to find the taste of what has gone before influencing one’s critical perception.’
OfJoyce, Jamesqua poet;c5n poetswritingpoetry versus prose;b6n as writers of prose: ‘Frankly, I do not see how anyone can write good poetry and not be capable of writing good prose as well. If a writer possesses the gift of poetic expression it naturally follows that his prose will benefit. All of the well-known modern Irish poets are masters of prose. James Joyce is a great poet as well as a great prose writer. Yeats’sYeats, William Butler ('W. B.')qua writer of prose;b8 prose, what there is of it, is recognised as excellent. Admittedly, it lacks the progressiveness, the modern quality which distinguishes his poetry, and it savours a little of the nineties, but it is nevertheless splendid prose of its period.’ Of his impressions of Ireland: ‘If you accept the axiom that what is lovable and admirable in a man is but a reflection of the country that bore him, I think you will find here an eloquent admission of what I think of Ireland.’
12.SeánÓ’Faoláin, Seán Ó’Faoláin (1900–91), novelist and short-story writer. Brought up in Ireland (where he was born John Francis Whelan), he attended University College Cork – for a while in the early 1920s he was an ardent nationalist and joined the Irish Volunteers – and he was a Commonwealth Fellow at Harvard University, 1926–8. Founder-editor of the Irish periodical The Bell, he also served as Director of the Arts Council of Ireland, 1957–9. Following Midsummer Night Madness and Other Stories (1932), he produced a wealth of stories: see Collected Stories of Seán Ó’Faoláin (1983).
13.NiallMontgomery, Niall Montgomery (1915–87), distinguished architect, poet and playwright; friend of Samuel Beckett; and authority on the work of James Joyce. See Christine O’Neill, ‘Niall Montgomery: An Early Irish Champion of Joyce’, James Joyce Journal 1 (2008), 1–16.
14.DonaghMacDonagh, Donagh MacDonagh (1912–68), Irish poet and playwright; barrister and judge (the youngest judge in Ireland on his appointment in 1941). His works include collections of verse: Variations and Other Poems (1941) and A Warning to Conquerors (1968); and verse plays including the acclaimed Happy as Larry (1946) and Lady Spider (1980). In a later year, TSE wrote this blurb for The Hungry Grass (F&F, 1947): ‘Donagh MacDonagh is an Irish poet of established reputation, whose work has until now been known in England only by those poems which have appeared from time to time in English magazines. This is the first collection of his poems to be published in this country. It will lead, we believe, to a valuation of this poet which will give him an assured place among the poets of his generation.’
15.DenisDevlin, Denis Devlin (1908–59), Irish poet and career diplomat; close friend of Brian Coffey, with whom he published Poems (1930). Collected Poems was edited by J. C. C. Mays (1989).
16.GeorgePlunkett, George Noble Noble Plunkett (1851–1948), Irish nationalist politician, a Papal Count. Three of his sons – Joseph, George and Jack – were sentenced to death after the 1916 Rising; Joseph was executed but his brothers had their sentences commuted.
17.JamesRyan, James Ryan (1891–1970), Fianna Fáil politician; Minister for Agriculture, 1932–47.
18.SirEsmonde, Sir Osmund Thomas Grattan Osmond Thomas Grattan Esmonde, 12th baronet (1896–1936), diplomat and politician.
19.Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856–1943), President of Harvard University, 1909–33.
20.TSE’sJoyce, Jamesdefended by TSE at UCD;c3 reply to Burke-Savage’s presentation – ‘Literature at the Crossroads’ – includes these remarks (p. 4): ‘There remains one great and lamentably isolated figure. James Joyce seems to me the most universal, the most Irish and the most Catholic writer in English in his generation. The spectacle of anyone educated in the Faith, who has subsequently lapsed from it or revolted from it, must always be a melancholy one; but we must distinguish here between a man and his work. The important thing in Joyce’s work is not the author’s conscious attitude towards his hereditary faith, but the fact that he has never been able to escape from it. Whatever he thinks of his education, and whatever its particular effect upon his temperament, his work is certainly an unconscious tribute to the kind of education he received – an education without which, I believe, he would not have achieved such eminence. The mind exhibited in the work remains profoundly Catholic and religious. This aspect of his work is perhaps more conspicuous to an observer brought up in, or habituated to the secularised atmosphere of England or America. What is fundamentally sound in it, for those who are mature enough to find it, is Catholic. In an essay published several years ago I developed this point by a rather detailed comparison of a story in the volume “Dubliners” called The Dead, with stories by Katherine Mansfield, D. H. Lawrence, and Thomas Hardy. I am not here concerned with estimates of the native gifts of all these authors; only with the importance of the religious background. It is to this that the superiority of the story of Joyce is primarily due; and it is the inferiority in this respect that leaves the accomplishment of the others so largely a waste of great gifts in error and triviality.’
The novelist James Hanley to TSE, 31 Jan. 1936: ‘I listened with great interest to your speech on the wireless last week from Ireland and need I say how thrilled I was when you spoke of James Joyce as you did, especially after Father Savage’s speech. Though I am myself Irish, having a Cork mother & Dublin father I would not care to live in that country ever again; and though I owe something to Catholicism for stimulating my imagination, I am all against the clerical conception of literary ethics. It was so splendid to hear Joyce championed in his own country and by one not Irish.’
DonaghJoyce, Jamesfor which TSE is attacked;c4n MacDonagh to TSE, 10 Feb. 1936: ‘Our leading Catholic paper has an attack on you for your praise of Joyce.’
Patricia Hutchins to TSE, 16 Nov. 1953: ‘Someone [Felix Hacket] was talking to me about the disapproval of Joyce at University College until fairly recently, and he said, “When T. S. Eliot mentioned in his lecture that Joyce was a Catholic writer, there was complete silence.”’
TSE replied to Hutchins, 23 Nov. 1953: ‘The incident in question took place at a meeting at University College, Dublin, I think in 1937 – at any rate, several years before the war. It was an unusual occasion which is, no doubt, well known to you. A local scholar – on this occasion, I think, a young Jesuit, whose name I have forgotten – presents a thesis, and a visitor is invited over to present a different, or at least his own, point of view on the same theme. The thesis of the lecturer consisted primarily, to the best of my recollection, of a severe criticism of W. B. Yeats for having made so much use of the pre-Christian mythology of Ireland, instead of drawing on the equally venerable Cathoic traditions. My function accordingly was primarily to present my own view of Yeats’s employment of pagan mythology. The whole disputation was certainly very fairly conducted, and of course I was given the opportunity to read the first address in order to prepare my rejoinder to it. After that there were a number of other speakers who talked more or less on the same questions.
‘I cannot now remember what was said by anybody and I do not know what became of the text of my own address. I therefore cannot remember whether I made a statement to the effect that Joyce was a Catholic writer. I know, however, that I did speak of Joyce, and of course in his praise. I am sure that complete silence is not an exact description of my words [sic]. So far as I can remember, the greater part of the audience remained in silence, but there was a considerable demonstration of applause from a group of young people at the back of the room, who were evidently well pleased that the name of Joyce should be mentioned, and his work openly preferred on such an occasion. But the whole proceedings went forward in perfect order.’
EdwardCarson, Edward Carson, Baron Carson (1854–1935), Irish Unionist politician, barrister and judge, organised the Irish Volunteers in order to secure military resistance to Home Rule, 1912–14.
11.DrCoffey, Dr Denis J. Denis J. Coffey (1865–1945), first President of University College Dublin, 1908–40. Formerly Professor of Physiology, and Dean of the Catholic University Medical School.
8.C. P. (ConstantineCurran, Constantine Peter ('C. P.') Peter) Curran (1880–1972), contemporary and friend of Joyce at Trinity College Dublin; lawyer and historian of eighteenth-century Dublin art and architecture; author of James Joyce Remembered (1968).
15.DenisDevlin, Denis Devlin (1908–59), Irish poet and career diplomat; close friend of Brian Coffey, with whom he published Poems (1930). Collected Poems was edited by J. C. C. Mays (1989).
18.SirEsmonde, Sir Osmund Thomas Grattan Osmond Thomas Grattan Esmonde, 12th baronet (1896–1936), diplomat and politician.
3.DesmondFitzgerald, Desmond Fitzgerald (1888–1947), Irish Nationalist politician; poet. See Letters 4; Karl O’Hanlon in the Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/desmond-fitzgerald-on-ts-eliot-a-revolutionary-taste-in-poetry-1.4438458.
4.OliverGogarty, Oliver St. John St John Gogarty (1878–1957), Irish poet, author, politician and conversationalist.
1.JamesJoyce, James Joyce (1882–1941), Irish novelist, playwright, poet; author of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), Finnegans Wake (1939).
2.MauraLaverty, Maura Laverty (1907–66), author, journalist and broadcaster, who worked for Radió Teilifis Éireann, interviewed TSE on Sat., 25 Jan.
1.AbbottLowell, Abbott Lawrence Lawrence Lowell (1856–1943), educator and legal scholar; President of Harvard University, 1909–33.
14.DonaghMacDonagh, Donagh MacDonagh (1912–68), Irish poet and playwright; barrister and judge (the youngest judge in Ireland on his appointment in 1941). His works include collections of verse: Variations and Other Poems (1941) and A Warning to Conquerors (1968); and verse plays including the acclaimed Happy as Larry (1946) and Lady Spider (1980). In a later year, TSE wrote this blurb for The Hungry Grass (F&F, 1947): ‘Donagh MacDonagh is an Irish poet of established reputation, whose work has until now been known in England only by those poems which have appeared from time to time in English magazines. This is the first collection of his poems to be published in this country. It will lead, we believe, to a valuation of this poet which will give him an assured place among the poets of his generation.’
1.EóinMacNeill, Eóin MacNeill (1867–1945); scholar; Gaelic nationalist politician, co-founder of the Gaelic League; Minister for Education, 1922–35. He served too in other public and governmental roles.From 1908, Professor of Early Irish History, University College Dublin.
13.NiallMontgomery, Niall Montgomery (1915–87), distinguished architect, poet and playwright; friend of Samuel Beckett; and authority on the work of James Joyce. See Christine O’Neill, ‘Niall Montgomery: An Early Irish Champion of Joyce’, James Joyce Journal 1 (2008), 1–16.
4.LadyMorrell, Lady Ottoline Ottoline Morrell (1873–1938), hostess and patron: see Biographical Register.
5.FrankO'Connor, Frank O’Connor (1903–66), distinguished Irish novelist, playwright and short-story writer; his works include Collected Stories (1981); An Only Child (autobiography, 1961); and a fine translation (1945) of the seventeenth-century satire The Midnight Court, by Brian Merriman.
12.SeánÓ’Faoláin, Seán Ó’Faoláin (1900–91), novelist and short-story writer. Brought up in Ireland (where he was born John Francis Whelan), he attended University College Cork – for a while in the early 1920s he was an ardent nationalist and joined the Irish Volunteers – and he was a Commonwealth Fellow at Harvard University, 1926–8. Founder-editor of the Irish periodical The Bell, he also served as Director of the Arts Council of Ireland, 1957–9. Following Midsummer Night Madness and Other Stories (1932), he produced a wealth of stories: see Collected Stories of Seán Ó’Faoláin (1983).
4.EdwardPakenham, Edward, 6th Earl of Longford Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford (1902–61), Anglo-Catholic Irish peer, politician (Irish Nationalist), dramatist and translator, succeeded to the earldom in 1915 and was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford. Chairman of the Gate Theatre, Dublin, 1930–6. Yahoo (1933), his play about Jonathan Swift – ‘the father of modern Irish nationalism,’ as Longford hailed him – was running at the Westminster Theatre, London.
16.GeorgePlunkett, George Noble Noble Plunkett (1851–1948), Irish nationalist politician, a Papal Count. Three of his sons – Joseph, George and Jack – were sentenced to death after the 1916 Rising; Joseph was executed but his brothers had their sentences commuted.
9.WilliamRussell, William George ('Æ') George Russell, known by the cipher Æ (1867–1935), writer, critic, poet, painter.
17.JamesRyan, James Ryan (1891–1970), Fianna Fáil politician; Minister for Agriculture, 1932–47.