Editing Nora Barnacle

{{refimprove|date = June 2024}}
{{Short description|Muse and wife of Irish author James Joyce}}
{{EngvarB|date=October 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2024}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Nora Barnacle
| image              = Portrait of Nora Joyce (Mrs. James Joyce) 1926–1927 (cropped).jpg
| image_caption      = Nora Barnacle, {{circa}} 1926 in this cropped photograph by [[Berenice Abbott]]
| birth_name         = Norah Barnacle
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|df=yes|1884|03|21}}
| birth_place        = [[Galway]], Ireland
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1951|04|10|1884|03|21}}
| death_place        = [[Zurich]], Switzerland
| spouse             = {{marriage|[[James Joyce]]|1931|1941|end=died}}
| children           = 2, including [[Lucia Joyce]]
| relatives = [[Stephen James Joyce]] (grandson)
}}

'''Nora Barnacle Joyce''' (born '''Norah Barnacle'''; 21 March 1884 – 10 April 1951) was the [[Artistic inspiration|muse]] and wife of Irish author [[James Joyce]]. 

Barnacle and Joyce's life together has been the subject of much popular interest. A 1980 [[Play (theatre)|play]], ''Nora Barnacle'' by [[Maureen Charlton]], was made about their relationship. Barnacle was the subject of a 1988 biography, ''Nora: A Biography of Nora Joyce'', by [[Brenda Maddox]], which was adapted into a 2000 Irish film, ''[[Nora (2000 film)|Nora]]'', directed by [[Pat Murphy (director)|Pat Murphy]], and starring [[Susan Lynch]] and [[Ewan McGregor]].

==Early life==
Barnacle was born in a [[Galway]] [[workhouse]] on 21 March 1884.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/birth_returns/births_1884/02698/1993624.pdf|title=General Registrar's Office|website=IrishGenealogy.ie|access-date=24 March 2017}}</ref> Her entry in the birth register, which gives her first name as "Norah" (the spelling she used until she met Joyce), is dated 22 March.<ref name="Maddox"/> Her father, Thomas Barnacle, a baker in [[Connemara]], was an illiterate man who was 38 years old when she was born. Her mother, Annie Honoria Healy, was 28 and worked as a dressmaker. The unusual surname Barnacle is derived from the Irish Ó Cadhain, usually anglicised as Coyne, Kyne, or Cohen or Coen. But in Irish, {{lang|ga|cadhan}} means "wild goose", and some families made the translation to Barnacle, after the [[barnacle goose]].<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/founding-feathers-frank-mcnally-on-the-surname-barnacle-and-other-irish-oddities-1.4811406 | title=Founding feathers – Frank McNally on the surname Barnacle and other Irish oddities | newspaper=[[The Irish Times]] }}</ref>

From 1886 to 1889, Barnacle's parents sent her to live with her maternal grandmother Catherine Mortimer Healy. During these years, she began studies at a convent, eventually graduating from a national school in 1891. In 1896, 12-year-old Barnacle completed her schooling and began to work as a porteress and laundress. In the same year, her mother threw her father out for drinking and the couple separated. Barnacle went to live with her mother and her uncle, Tom Healy, at 4 Bowling Green, Galway. This house has since been converted into a small museum dedicated to Nora.

In 1896, at age 12, Barnacle fell in love with a teenager named [[Michael Feeney (schoolteacher)|Michael Feeney]], who died soon after of [[typhoid]] and [[pneumonia]]. In a dramatic coincidence, another boy she loved, Michael Bodkin, died in 1900&nbsp;– causing some of her friends to call her "man-killer".<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/19/books/she-was-the-other-ireland.html | title=She Was the Other Ireland | newspaper=The New York Times | date=19 June 1988 | last1=O'Brien | first1=Edna }}</ref> Joyce later referenced these incidents in the final short story in ''[[Dubliners]]'', "[[The Dead (Joyce short story)|The Dead]]". It was rumoured that she sought comfort from her friend, budding English theatre starlet Laura London, who introduced her to a Protestant named [[Willie Mulvagh]]. In 1903, she left Galway after her uncle learned of the affair and friendship, and went to [[Dublin]] where she worked as a [[maid|chambermaid]] at Finn's Hotel (later the name of the hotel was used as the title for a posthumously published collection of 10 short narrative pieces written by Joyce, ''[[Finn's Hotel]]'', in 2013<ref name="guardian">{{Cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/14/james-joyce-collection-published |title=James Joyce's 'last undiscovered' collection to be published |website=[[TheGuardian.com]] |date=14 June 2013 |access-date=12 December 2016 |archive-date=17 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170517010105/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/14/james-joyce-collection-published |url-status=live }}</ref>).

==Relationship with Joyce==
[[File:The Joyces, 1924.jpg|thumb|200px|Paris 1924: Clockwise from top left – James Joyce, Giorgio Joyce, Nora Barnacle, [[Lucia Joyce]]]]
Barnacle met Joyce on 10 June 1904 while in Dublin and they had their [[First date|first romantic liaison]] on 16 June. Joyce later chose 16 June 1904 as the date for the setting for his novel ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'' and the date has come to be known and celebrated around the world as [[Bloomsday]]. The 1904 rendezvous began a long relationship that eventually led to marriage in 1931<ref>{{cite news | title=James (Augustine Aloysius) Joyce Biography (1882–1941) | url=https://www.biography.com/people/james-joyce-9358676 | access-date=8 June 2017 | archive-date=15 May 2017 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170515083006/http://www.biography.com/people/james-joyce-9358676 | url-status=live }}</ref> and continued until Joyce's death.

Barnacle's and Joyce's relationship was complex. They had different personalities, tastes and cultural interests. Of their first meeting, she recalled: "I mistook him for a Swedish sailor – His electric blue eyes, yachting cap and [[Plimsoll shoe|plimsolls]]. But when he spoke, well then, I knew him at once for just another Dublin [[jackeen]] chatting up a country girl."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Introducing Joyce: a graphic guide|last1=Norris |first1=David |last2=Flint |first2=Carl |publisher=Icon Books Ltd|year=1994|isbn=978-184831-351-4|location=London|pages=46}}</ref> The numerous erotic letters they exchanged suggest they loved each other passionately.<ref name="Maddox - Guardian 2004">{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/jul/09/books.booksnews|title=Ah yes – but what ever happened to Nora's side of the correspondence?|last=Maddox|first=Brenda|date=8 July 2004|work=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=31 May 2013|archive-date=20 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131120131330/http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/jul/09/books.booksnews|url-status=live}}</ref> These are also of interest because of Joyce's lifelong dislike of swearing and crude language.<ref name="bbc-2004-07-08">{{cite web |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3877209.stm |title=Joyce letter smashes sale record |date= 8 July 2004 |website=[[BBC News]] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170829062700/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3877209.stm |archive-date=29 August 2017 }} 8 July 2004, ''bbc.co.uk'', Accessed 16 June 2019</ref> Joyce seems to have admired and trusted her, and Barnacle clearly loved Joyce and trusted him enough to agree to leave Ireland with him for the Continent. In anticipation of the move to Paris, she began studying French.

In 1904, Barnacle and Joyce left Ireland for continental Europe and the following year set up house in [[Trieste]] (at that time in [[Austria-Hungary]]). On 27 June 1905, Nora Barnacle gave birth to a son, Giorgio and later to a daughter, [[Lucia Joyce|Lucia]], on 26 July 1907. A miscarriage in 1908 coincided with the beginning of a difficult time for both. Though she remained by his side, and the couple were legally married in London in 1931, she complained to her sister both about his personal qualities and his writings.

In these letters to her sister, she said he drank too much and wasted too much money. As for his literary activity, she lamented that his writings were obscure and lacking in sense. She was always fiercely proud of him, although she occasionally expressed impatience at his meetings with other artists and admitted she would have preferred him to have been a musician—in his youth, he was a talented singer—rather than a writer.

Lucia's mental illness, which became acute in the early 1930s, posed another challenge to the couple's relationship. Nora believed the condition required hospitalisation, which Joyce opposed. They brought in many specialists, and Lucia was for a time the patient of [[Carl Jung]]. She was diagnosed with [[schizophrenia]] and admitted to a clinic in 1936. Her father visited her there often, but not her mother. As Nora's biographer Brenda Maddox recorded, "Lucia was rarely out of Nora's mind. Because she had aroused Lucia's most florid schizophrenic reactions, Nora was not allowed to accompany Joyce on his ritual Sunday afternoon visits to Ivry. Not only did this exclude her from any contact with her daughter, it also required her to spend much of each week arranging for someone to accompany Joyce, who could not easily go alone&nbsp;... Joyce liked to portray himself as safe from Lucia's violence as if he was the only other permitted inhabitant of her private world. Yet once when Giorgio went with his father, Lucia saw them and cried, 'Che bello! Che bello!' then lunged and tried to strangle them." As Maddox also noted, "There is no record that Nora ever saw her daughter again."{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}}

==Later life and death==
After Joyce's death in [[Zurich]] in 1941, Nora decided to remain there for the rest of her days. She died in Zurich of [[acute kidney injury|acute kidney failure]] in 1951, at age 67. She was buried at [[Fluntern Cemetery]], by her husband's side. Their son Giorgio was buried with them in 1976.<ref>{{cite news|last=Jordan|first=Anthony|date=13 January 2018|title=Remembering James Joyce, 77 years to the day after his death|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/remembering-james-joyce-77-years-to-the-day-after-his-death-1.3347837|newspaper=The Irish Times|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200303015718/https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/remembering-james-joyce-77-years-to-the-day-after-his-death-1.3347837|archive-date=3 March 2020|url-access=limited}}</ref>

==Legacy==
In 1980, the play ''Nora Barnacle'' by [[Maureen Charlton]], depicting the life of Barnacle and Joyce, debuted at the [[Dublin Theatre Festival]]. ''The Washington Post'' described the play as  "the finest piece of theatre at this or at other theatre festival since ''[[The Cherry Orchard]]'' with [[Siobhán McKenna]] in 1968".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.ie/world-news/maureen-charlton-26312424.html |title=Maureen Charlton |date=19 August 2007 |newspaper=[[Irish Independent]] |location=Dublin |issn=0021-1222 |language=en |access-date=5 May 2021 |archive-date=5 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210505131539/https://www.independent.ie/world-news/maureen-charlton-26312424.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1988, Nora Barnacle was the subject of a biography by [[Brenda Maddox]], ''Nora: A Biography of Nora Joyce''.<ref name="Maddox">{{cite book |first=Brenda |last=Maddox |title=Nora: Biography of Nora Joyce|publisher=Hamish Hamilton |year=1988 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QtRaAAAAMAAJ |isbn=9780241123850 |access-date=16 June 2015 |archive-date=20 May 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160520162732/https://books.google.com/books?id=QtRaAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live}}</ref> In 2000, this biography was [[Nora (2000 film)|adapted into a film]] directed by [[Pat Murphy (director)|Pat Murphy]], starring [[Susan Lynch]] and [[Ewan McGregor]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158033/ |title=Nora (2000) |website=imdb.com |access-date=16 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190429171454/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158033/ |archive-date=29 April 2019 }}</ref>

In 2004, an erotic letter from Joyce to Barnacle sold at [[Sotheby's]] for £240,800, a record amount for a modern-day letter at auction.<ref name="bbc-2004-07-08" />

A novel, ''Nora'', by [[Nuala Ní Chonchúir|Nuala O'Connor]], was published in 2021.<ref>{{cite web |title=Nora: Nuala O'Connor brings Joyce's wife lustily to life |url=https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-reviews/nora-nuala-oconnor-brings-joyces-wifelustily-to-life-40424937.html |website=www.independent.ie |date=15 May 2021 |access-date=15 June 2022}}</ref>

In 2023, [[Mary Morrissy]] published ''Penelope Unbound'', a novel which imagined a different outcome to the life of Nora Barnacle and Joyce after they arrived in [[Trieste]] in 1904.<ref>{{cite news| url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/03/penelope-unbound-by-mary-morrissy-review-masterly-alternative-life-of-nora-barnacle| title = Penelope Unbound by Mary Morrissy review – masterly alternative life of Nora Barnacle| author = [[John Banville]]| date = 3 October 2023| access-date = 23 November 2023|newspaper = The Guardian}}</ref>

Nora Barnacle House Museum: Nora's childhood home in Bowling Green, Galway has been converted into a small museum dedicated to her life.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/results.jsp?census_year=1901&surname=Barnacle&firstname=&county=Galway&townland=bowling+green&ded=&age=&sex=&search=Search&relationToHead=&religion=&education=&occupation=&marriageStatus=&birthplace=&language=&deafdumb=&marriageYears=&childrenBorn=&childrenLiving= 1901 Census of Ireland, entry on Bowling Green, Galway for Barnacle family. (Specific listing: Barnacle, Norah. Bowling Green, Galway North, Urban, Galway. Age 18, Female)]
* [http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai000807914/ PDF of scanned image of 1901 Census data, listing household members at Barnacle house.]
* [http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai000807909/ PDF of scanned image of 1901 Census data, listing house and building return for Barnacle house and buildings.]

{{James Joyce|state=expanded}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnacle, Nora}}
[[Category:1884 births]]
[[Category:1951 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century Irish people]]
[[Category:19th-century Irish women]]
[[Category:20th-century Irish women]]
[[Category:People from Galway (city)]]
[[Category:Muses (persons)]]
[[Category:Deaths from kidney failure]]
[[Category:Irish expatriates in Switzerland]]
[[Category:Burials at Fluntern Cemetery]]
[[Category:James Joyce]]