Joyce, Synge, Beckett and Yeats \u2026 four of the titans of Irish writing who have drawn international critical acclaim for pushing the boundaries of language and for crafting novels, plays and poems that are ranked among the greatest in world literature. The first of these,\u00a0 James Joyce (1882-1941), is at once among the most celebrated but also the among the most enigmatic. The free flowing nature of his texts which bend and warp the rules of grammar do not make for light reading. That perhaps explains why so many know his name and his repute but have never got beyond the first few pages of his works such as\u00a0 \u201cFinnegan\u2019s Wake\u201d (1939) and the incomparable \u201cUlysses\u201d (1922).
\nFor those who do penetrate the textured foliage of his written language there are, no doubt, many rewards. Perhaps less well known in these parts are references in Joyce\u2019s work to his life experiences in Co. Kildare. The fact that his writing is out of copyright this year gives this column the freedom to explore at some length the county\u2019s Joycean connections. And the timing is good with Saturday next, 16 June, marking \u201cBloomsday,\u201d the date on which Joycean connoisseurs recreate the perambulations of Leopold Bloom, the hero of \u201cUlysses\u201d, through the streets of Dublin.
\nHowever Joyce\u2019s most formative years were spent not within the red-bricked terraces of early 20th century Dublin but in the plains of north Kildare where in 1888 at the tender age of\u00a0six he attended Clongowes Wood College, the Jesuit secondary college near Clane. In his semi-autobiographical\u00a0 \u201cA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man\u201d\u00a0 (1916) his experiences as told through the recollections of one Stephen Dedalus (a cipher for Joyce himself) are painted through vivid descriptions of Clongowes and its environs.\u00a0 He recalls the atmosphere of college meals in the refectory, of study periods and of Father Arnall\u2019s mathematics classes. He also mentions his interactions with life outside of the college halls when he makes reference to attending mass in the Peoples\u2019 Chapel at Clongowes. Perhaps this was to inspire Joyce in later years when he wrote of Leopold Bloom, the main character in \u201cUlysses,\u201d serving mass as he \u201ccarried the boat of incense then at Clongowes\u201d.
\nNotable are his references to the environs of\u00a0 north Kildare as seen on his journeys between Clongowes and Sallins to catch the train at the end of school term. In \u201cPortrait of the Artist\u201d one of those end of term journeys is evoked. He tells of how the horse-drawn coaches, laden with cheering boys, crunch along the gravel avenue of Clongowes and then on the road to Clane past the house of \u201cthe Jolly Farmer\u201d. The carriage drivers are pointing \u201cwith their whips to Bodenstown\u201d as they trot along the road towards Sallins. Joyce\u2019s description brings home in colourful detail the busy nature of Sallins as a hub of rail travel: \u201cGoing home for the holidays! .. the train was full of fellows: a long chocolate train with cream facings \u2026\u201d.
\nOn another rail journey through the \u201cflat lands\u201d of Kildare Joyce makes reference to Stephen Dedalus seeing the Hill of Allen as he gazes out of the train window. Joyce\u2019s gift of making the words on paper sing with music is apparent when he describes how Stephen began a prayer \u201cwhich he made to fit the instant rhythm of the train; and silently, at intervals of four seconds, the telegraph-poles, held the galloping notes of music between punctual bars.\u201d
\nA few more notes of Joyce trivia. The rector of Rathcoffey gets a mention in \u201cUlysses\u201d when we read of Leopold Bloom receiving a card from \u201cthe reverend Hugh C. Love, Rathcoffey. Present address: Saint Michael\u2019s, Sallins\u201d \u2013 a reference to the Church of St. Michael and All Angels at Millicent.
\nBut back to \u201cPortrait of an Artist\u201d and Joyce\u2019s sardonic humour. He writes of Stephen\u00a0 Dadalus sharing a school-boy riddle with a fellow Clongowes pupil: Question- \u201cWhy is the county of Kildare like the leg of a fellow\u2019s breeches?\u201d; Answer- \u201cBecause there is a-thigh in it \u2026\u201d.\u00a0 Think about it!<\/p>\n
by Liam Kenny<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joyce, Synge, Beckett and Yeats \u2026 four of the titans of Irish writing who have drawn international critical acclaim for pushing the boundaries of language and for crafting novels, plays and poems that are ranked among the greatest in world literature. The first of these,\u00a0 James Joyce (1882-1941), is at once among the most celebrated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","category-social-history"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kildare Local Studies","author_link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/author\/localstudies\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8049,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4737\/revisions\/8049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}