Nora Barnacle the great love and muse of James Joyce was born in Galway’s workhouse on March 21st, 1884. Her family circumstance were clearly challenging as her parents separated some 12 years after she was born.
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Early in life, Nora seems to have been unlucky in love, losing two boyfriends, Michael Feeney and Michael Bodkin to premature death. These tragedies were combined into the character of a Michael Furey, a figure in The Dead, the concluding short story of Joyce’s The Dubliners. A third relationship with a Protestant, Willie Mulvagh, would cause a conflict with Nora’s disapproving uncle, Tom Healy. The disagreement culminated in violence leading to her departure for Dublin in 1903 where she secured employment as a chambermaid in Finn’s Hotel.
Exterior of Finn's Hotel, South Leinster Street, Dublin
A year later, Nora crossed paths with James Joyce on Nassau Street in Dublin. Joyce was smitten by her copper haired beauty and they arranged to meet again on the 16th of June, now known as Bloomsday to devotees of the author’s magnus opus, Ulysses.
By Oct of 1904, Nora and Joyce agreed to elope and leave Ireland. Joyce likely felt suffocated by the oppressive cocktail of a dominant Catholic Church, nationalistic politics and a literary environment that was more backward looking than forward. Much of the next 16 years of self imposed exile were spent in the Italian speaking port city of Trieste then part of the Austro Hungarian Empire. Their relationship was strained by financial difficulties with Joyce eking out an income as an English teacher.
Trieste during the Austro Hungarian Empire
Nora’s two children, Giorgio and Lucia were born in Trieste in 1905 and 1907. Sadly both children led difficult lives with Giorgio suffering from alcoholism and Lucia, schizophrenia, leading to institutionalization for much of her adult life.
Nora Barnacle with children: Giorgia and Lucia Joyce
In 1920, the couple moved to Paris assisted by Harriet Shaw Weaver’s patronage of Joyce. Ulysses was published in 1922 to the acclaim of many and disgust of conservatives who managed to initially ban the book in America and Great Britain. Barnacle and Joyce finally married in a London civil ceremony in 1931, likely to protect the potential inheritance that Ulysses and Joyce’s other works might provide for their children
Joyce worked on Finnegan’s Wake for much of the remainder of his life, a book which few could understand including Nora who at times was critical of the obtuseness of her husband’s work. With the outbreak of World War II, the couple fled Paris for Zurich in 1940 following the Nazi occupation of Paris and it was there that Joyce died in 1941 and Nora some 10 years later on Apri 10th, 1951. They are buried together along with son Georgio in the Fluntern cemetery in Zurich.
For a more complete biography of Nora Barnacle, please visit the Dictionary of Irish Biography
