James Joyce loved his father even though few others did
“I even liked his faults” JJ
John Stanislaus Joyce at one time in his life could afford to have his portrait painted. James Joyce considered it a prized possession. John and wife Mary are buried together at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.
James Joyce’s father was John Stanislaus Joyce. He loved reading the obituaries in the Irish Times out loud at the breakfast table. When he read the death notice for a Mrs. Cassidy, his wife May, who knew the deceased said, “Oh, don’t tell me that Mrs. Cassidy is dead.”
“Well I don’t know about that but someone has taken the liberty of burying her,” he said.
A man who comes up with a line like that at breakfast strictly for the entertainment of his wife a couple of kids and himself can’t be all bad, right?
The father of the man who wrote Ulysses, considered an immortal masterpiece by people way smarter than me, wasn’t always a good man. But he wasn’t the worst dad ever.
John Stanislaus Joyce at one time in his life could afford to have his portrait painted. James Joyce considered it a prized possession. John and wife Mary are buried together at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.
“He never said anything about my books, but he couldn’t deny me. The humour of Ulysses is his; its people are his friends. The book is his spittin’ image.” James Joyce
John Joyce drank too much, spent more money than his family had, subjected his wife to emotional abuse and neglected his fatherly duties. Despite all that, James, the first born of ten surviving Joyce kids, recalled mostly the positive after his death.
“He was the silliest man I ever knew. And yet cruelly shrewd. Hundreds of pages and scores of characters came from him. I got from him his portraits, his waistcoat, a good tenor voice and an extravagant, licentious disposition (irrational spending and drinking).”
“I was very fond of him always, being a sinner myself, and even liked his faults,” wrote James, the only Joyce child who received anything in their dad’s last will and testament.
John had another son who was a writer
Stanislaus Joyce in Trieste, Italy. Photo taken by Claire McAffee’s father and posted on Facebook. Stanislaus Joyce wrote a pretty good book about his brother and his father.
Stiffed along with the rest of the adult children was Stanislaus, who wrote a book about his brother (My Brother’s Keeper - James Joyce’s Early Years - 1958) that settled a score with his father.
“He belonged to the class of deserving poor. People who richly deserved to be poor.”
“It’s astonishing that a father with so little character could beget a son with so much.” Stanislaus meant James.
“He was always looking for a job – one suitable, of course, for a man who does not want to work.”
“A man of absolutely unreliable temper.”
Stanislaus recalled moving nine times in eleven years to small and smaller residences in poor and poorer precincts of Dublin. When they first started moving, they needed three wagons to carry their furnishings etc. At the end they could haul it all in one small wagon.
Stanislaus Joyce in Trieste, Italy. Photo taken by Claire McAffee’s father and posted on Facebook. Stanislaus Joyce wrote a pretty good book about his brother and his father.
John Joyce had his moments
A rare photo of James Joyce (in sailor suit) with his father (l) and his mother Mary. Man on the right is unidentified. (Morgan Library)
There was a time when John Joyce was a minor player in Irish politics and life was good.
“We had a Thanksgiving meeting at the Rotunda Bar. I was the cock of the walk that day and I will never forget it. I was complimented by everybody. I got 100 guineas form each of the members. My God, it was three o’clock in the morning and the excitement was great and I was the hero of it all because they said it was I that had won the election.
“We were drinking there for 3 hours. What were we to do at the ungodly hours of the morning? The Turkish baths came to mind. And there I went after having God’s quantity of champagne. Oh dear, dear God. Those were great times.”
Given that John Stanislaus Joyce was one of way too many drunken, deadbeat dads in Ireland at the end of the 19th century who put their families through unnecessary adversity, we only give him a mention this Father’s Day because of who his son was and what his son gave the world.
A very proud father of a prodigy
Check the date on the newspaper.
When his son James came home one day with a poem he had written for a school assignment the father read it and was so proud that he went out and had copies printed. The subject of that poem Et tu, Healy, was Irish politics in the 1890s but that doesn’t matter. What kind of father prints up his kid’s poem, hands it out to his drinking buddies and reads it aloud at the bar? John Joyce must have seen something in James Joyce, who was nine when he wrote that poem.
SOURCES and FURTHER READING
The Voluminous Life and Genius of James Joyce’s Father by John Wyse Jackson and Peter Costello
James Joyce by Richard Ellman
My Brother’s Keeper - James Joyce’s Early Years by Stanislaus Joyce
Join us for a belated Bloomsday
On June 18, 2026 at Kells Restaurant in Portland (112 SW Second Ave.) the Portland Hibernian Society will hold its annual Bloomsday celebration at Six P.M. All are welcome.