Nora Barnacle
| Nora Barnacle | |
|---|---|
Paris 1924: Clockwise from top left - James Joyce, Giorgio Joyce, Nora Barnacle, Lucia Joyce
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| Born | March 1884 Connemara, County Galway, Ireland |
| Died |
April 10, 1951 (aged 67) Zürich, Switzerland |
| Spouse(s) |
James Joyce (m. 1931–41) Eloped in 1904 |
James Joyce (m. 1931–41)
Nora Barnacle (March 1884 – April 10, 1951) was the muse and wife of Irish author James Joyce.
Nora Barnacle was born in the city of Galway, Ireland, but the day of her birth is uncertain. Depending on the source, it varies between 21 and 24 March 1884. Her birth certificate, which gives her first name as "Norah," is dated 21 March. Her father Thomas Barnacle, a baker in Connemara, was an illiterate man who was 38 years old when Nora was born. Her mother, Annie Honoria Healy, was 28 and worked as a dressmaker.
Between 1886 and 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, 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 No.4 Bowling Green, Galway City.
In 1896, at age 12, Barnacle fell in love with a teenager named Michael Feeney, who died soon after of typhoid and pneumonia. In a dramatic coincidence, another boy she loved, Michael Bodkin, died in 1900—causing some of her friends to call her "man-killer." Joyce later based the final short story in Dubliners, The Dead, on these incidents. 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 chambermaid at Finn's Hotel (later the name of the hotel was used as the title for a posthumously-published collection of ten short narrative pieces written by Joyce, Finn's Hotel, in 2013.)
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