James Joyce: Ireland's Most Enigmatic Writer 

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Visited Dublin years ago and asked the hotel barman which pubs Joyce drank in. He said it would be quicker to list the pubs Joyce DIDN'T drink in...😏

There is a standard joke: "Have you read Joyce?" "Of course, I love all of her works."

“When I die Dublin will be written in my heart” James Joyce

Cheers for honoring James Joyce, as a member of the Joyce clan I appreciate it. My Joyce ancestors left Ireland for the US sometime in the decades after the great famine, and I must say that some of the stories of alcoholism and domestic problems sound exactly the same as the stories I heard from my grandfather Pat Joyce about his childhood and his father. To me the contrast between the depths of despair, mental illness and alcoholism and also the undeniable artistic brilliance of James Joyce are not even really in contrast, one goes with the other

Should definitely do Michael Collins my man

When you introduce Joyce's wife, Nora, you present a photo of Joyce's daughter, Lucia. You might want to correct that.

Great video, As an Irish man born in the late 70s and had parents that where in play groups and listening to a lot of Joyce stories it's great to hear somone else say it as they see it on the subject. Keep up the great work you do, Thanks.

*Mistakes are the portal of discovery* - James Joyce

Simon, I dropped a class in college because half the class was Ulysses. To explain why to my Mom I brought the book home and told her to open it anywhere and start to read. She didn’t make it through a paragraph before she just closed it and told me that she understood why. I hope that you are enjoying all the new things in your life 💕

If you wish to do other famous Irish people, here are a few: • Michael Collins - the father of Irish Independence. The inspirational leader of the old IRA (not the terrorist group of '70's) and transitioned from revolutionary to politician. He was a great leader and is worshipped in Ireland. He's a story of what might have been, as he was assassinated at a young age in the brutal Irish Civil War. • Eamon De Valera - often referred to as DeV, De Valera was the most impactful Irish leader of the 20th Century. History has not been kind to him, as he is seen as an extreme man for his time, while his role in the Civil War created a huge split in Irish people, and is seen as someone who set Collins up to die. But he was important to Ireland and would be our Taoiseach (Prime Minister) on 3 occasions for a total of 21 years. • William Joyce - AKA Lord Haw-Haw. Born in New York in 1906, Joyce grew up in Galway in Ireland and aided the despised Auxiliaries in the Irish War of Independence before fleeing to England. He would become involved in Fascist movements across the UK before leaving for Germany in 1939. He became a radio propagandist for the Nazis in 1939 before being hung for treason in 1946. • Gerry Adams - former leader of Sinn Féin, Adams was extremely influential during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. He was in the IRA and a member of Sinn Féin before making a somewhat successful transition to politician. • John Hume - a beloved man from the Troubles. John Hume fought for peace in Northern Ireland and equal rights for the Catholic Irish Nationalists. He wished to do this through peaceful means only and is one of the most beloved people in Ireland. He won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1998. Hope you like these suggestions!

Joyce once said (supposedly) it took him seventeen years to write Ulysses, so it should take seventeen years to read it. I like that. Jenn in Canada 🇨🇦

Micheal Collins, now that we’re on Ireland, we need these lads

Always thought we were related to James Joyce, but as it turns out, our line of Joyces(proven through Y DNA testing) are descended from a Scottish man named William Joass. Our family name changed to Joss, then Joyce after our ancestors fled to county Down, Ireland in the early 1700s

Please do Fyodor Dostoyevsky for a bio! A man whom dealt with near death experience and the tyrannical nature of the Russian Empire of the mid 1800s. Very interesting guy!

Can you do one on Christy Brown, the Irish writer with cerebral palsy?

Can you please please do michael collins

Class video Simon and the team would love more irish history vids our history is so rich and mainly unknown to other nations

Thank you. Been waiting for this one for a long time.💕

Thanks for this one! Well done

This is brilliant! If you are doing Irish writers, would you please consider doing a biographics on Samuel Beckett ?

Another writer that would be an interesting bio could be Chinua Achebe. The author of "Things Fall Apart" would be an interesting bio for you guys (and gals!) Also, maybe some composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Wagner, or Tchaikovsky. Or a contemporary writer/singer Gord Downie? (The lead man of the Canadian band The Tragically Hip) Awesome job as always Biographics

An excellent summary of a complex author and person. There's a little museum dedicated to him and other writers next to the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin. A poignant experience going there.

Finnegan's Wake is in my top 10 favorite books! Very well written! So deep! I learned much at a young age!

You should do one on micheal collins

Just found your channel a few days ago. I'm loving it. Could you perhaps do Dostoevsky and Conrad next

Wonderful video! My favorite of Joyce 's works has always been "The Dead."

Ireland also produced my favorite writer, Sheridan Le Fanu. He wrote Carmilla, which was an influence for Dracula and Lucy. I would love to see a bio on him.

I tried reading Ulysses once when I was a young man, but it was so dense, frustrating, and incomprehensible to me that I quit and never picked it up again. Because of that experience, I never attempted to read Joyce again. Now that I'm in the autumn of my years, perhaps I'll try reading one of his earlier more user friendly books and see what I've been missing all these years.

Very informative. Thank you.

great video. Thank you

Aldous Huxley at some point?

Congratulations. This is the best short biography and appreciation of Joyce that I have found so far. I still don't understand why anybody would want to read him, but that's probably never going to change. I struggled through "Ulysses" as an undergrad. It was the single most hideous reading experience of my life.

Don't quote any of the letters Joyce wrote to Nora, they'll get the video demonetized.

Hideo Kojima, that made Metal Gear Solid 2: sons of liberty 2001 was inspired by James Joyce Ulysses work. To read Ulysses myself it's no wonder why Hideo was interested by his work, very in depth detail.

I am glad to hear I am not the only one who had trouble reading Finnegans Wake! I suppose i should start with one of his other works! LOL

Did you know that Joyce was the manager of one of Dublin’s first cinemas (maybe even the first)? A couple of clarifications: 1- any backlash about the repatriation of Joyce’s remains was actually from the Swiss side, not Ireland. And probably Stephen Joyce, because it’s what he does. 2- some of the behaviour around Lucia can possibly be explained by the fact it happened when she was sent to stay with Padraic and Mary Colum (the latter was instrumental in Ulysses becoming popular in the US). Mary contacted James and Nora to voice her concerns - sadly Giorgio came instead and had her committed. Also, it wasn’t the Beckett breakup that caused Giorgio to decide to commit her, but a later one.

Hey! The pictures you show are not of Nora but of Lucia, Joyce's and Nora's daughter. Other from that, the video is great! Thank you!!

That first picture was Lucia, Joyce’s daughter.

If by "enigmatic" you mean the text equivalent of wading in snake-infested quicksand during a tornado while drunk and huffing ether in the dark, then yeah, sure...

_Finnegan's Wake_ -- The most famous book no one has ever read.

Hello from Cork !!!

Joyce, wrote about TRUE life. GREAT writer he is a favorite of many of mine Thanks Simon for your great work...

the story oh his daughter is also something...

It took me about a decade of reading Ulysses and trying to make sense of it before I realized (probably out of frustration) that his depiction of core humanity is so on the nose that it simply isn't compatible with the concept of narrative fiction. OR he's to smart for me and I'm grasping at straws. That said, I'd like to see Simon cover Sylvia Plath or Pablo Neruda.

Please do a biography on Grace O Malley 🙏.

Nice to see an early Albatross in this video, Simon!

1:45 - Chapter 1 - Write what you know...Dubliner 6:45 - Chapter 2 - In his father's footsteps 9:35 - Mid roll ads 11:00 - Chapter 3 - My proud blue-eyes queen...i'm mad with lust 14:10 - Chapter 4 - The tragedy of of Joyce's attention to detail 17:40 - Chapter 5 - Fleeing france

I just remembered after seeing this video that I had actually read one of Joyce's short stories back in high school and loved it. His pedantic style garnered criticism by some, but I loved it.

Along this same vein-William Faulkner please.

joyce’s love letters are something of legend

thank you

Aloysius (/ˌæloʊˈɪʃəs/ AL-oh-ISH-əs)

The pictures used for Nora here are actually all of Lucia Joyce.

Madomn Jeanne Guyon biography! Thanks Simon the channel is awesome.

This is great ! The controversial and singular Gabriele D' Annunzio would be a good idea for a future video.

Love me some Guinness. I'm not even Irish. Scottish & Native American. But damn, I love me some Guinness.

Would it be possible to get the sponsor stuff out of the way at the very beginning or at the very end

Woah . Literally started reading dubliners yesterday

A constant struggle is what people want, it creates more energy. Energy creates results and dreams.

legend has it joyce drank 30 Guinness a day while writing finnegans wake

Wow! This was a great video. I’m so fascinated by his life. My family is also from County Cork. A fantasy is that I’m a distant relation of Joyce. 😊

This video motivates me somehow to read this author. Thank you :)

Nice one, I was wondering if you have (or can do) a video about Enver Hoxha? Famous leader of Albania for years.

Hey Simon! Have you yet done a video on famous Scottish writer Robert Burns?

Could you please do videos about Upton Sinclair and Dennis Rader in the future?

Next: Kelly Johnson, the genius aeronautical engineer, father of the U2 spy plane and the SR 71 blackbird...

Great Bio!!!! I always wondered how Agatha Christie got into “who done it” mysteries.

Reading Ulysses right now. Hurts my brain.

You should do Marry Shelley.

A biographics on the great and tragic Robert Emmett would be legendary. RIP Emmett.

Good timing. I just bought Ulysses

I thought it was random/funny that Ernest Hemingway talked about Joyce being a good drinking partner in ‘The Green Hills of Africa’

Think you'd ever do Sir Richard Burton or Algernon Swinburne? I read a sci-fi, alternate history, series with those two as unlikely time traveler fighting companions and they seem like pretty interesting characters.

I'd like to see an episode dedicated to MacBeth. Perhaps it could be a what we know of the real MacBeth versus what's in Shakespeare's play. An alternative could be a bio on the main characters of MacBeth, contrasted against the historical figures they were based on.

Roger Casement would make a fantastic Biographic video His life's work included: Exposing the exploitation in the rubber plantations of Congo and Peru, a knighthood in 1912. His secret work as an Irish revolutionary, gunrunning into Howth, sourcing weapons and assistance from the Germans, travelling aboard the U20 submarine, that a year before had sunk the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland. His arrest and outing as a homosexual during his trial for high treason to prevent a call for clemency from the U.S, before his execution in Pentonville Prison

Just in time for my Finnegans Wake reading!

Could you please do a bio on Ip Man? Thank you :)

This isn't Nora Barnacle at 11:42 and 10:54, this is his daughter Lucia Joyce.

Since you are on the topic of writers, how about Jane Austen or The Brontë Sisters? Austen and the Brontë sisters are some of the most famous female writers of all time.

Now we Need one on samuel beckett!

The reason that I have subtitles turned off is that they are distracting and useless. Yet you stick them in our faces anyway, even when we have them turned off

See end of "A Portrait..." : to fly by the nets of..." was his reason for leaving Ireland. What inhibit many Irish writers.

Hey! Loved the video! Here 's a list of interesting people for bios! António Salazar - Portuguese XX century dictator Andrew Jackson - 1820's us president Abraham Lincoln - 1860's us president (duhh) Ronald Reagan - 1980's us president Paul Von Hinderburg - WW1 general and president of the Weimar Republic Erich Ludendorff - infamous WW1 German general Duke of Wellington - (the guy that beat Napoleon Bonaparte) Love your Channel! thanks!

Someone must have mentioned this already, but the pictures shown for Nora Barnacle are actually of Joyce's daughter Lucia.

I have to admit that I never finished Finnegans Wake.. and I majored in English Literature🙁 I’m picking it up again. Hopefully I can finish this time.

Me bride of 22 years and I named our beautiful black cat Nora after James Joyce's muse and paramour.

You need to do more when it comes to Irish history for example..Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, Charles Stuart Parnell and his fight for Home Rule, Daniel O'Connell "The Liberator" and his fight for Catholic emancipation.. James Connolly, Michael Collins, Padraig Pearse, Eamon De Valera, Tom Barry, Maud Gonne, Constance Markievicz and other freedom fighters/revolutionaries like Bobby Sands.. as well as John Hume and his political career from the civil rights movement to the peace process.

One of the best Irish writers up there with Oscar Wilde imo

Can you do one one James Connolly. He was an internationalist but one of the signee of the Irish proclamation of independence.

A bar in my hometown (Pula 🇭🇷), located in the building where he taught, was named after Ulysses. 😃

Suggestion for a video: Jim Corbett, the british hunter

Could you do a video on Hubert Selby Jr. ?

Should have mentioned what he's affectionately known as in Dublin "the prick with the stick"!

Please do the biography of Phillip Lynott.

hardest working man on utube

This suggestion is off the topic of authors (the bios of authors have been quite prolific as of late); an interesting figure of early 19th century European history, wars, and politics is Jean Bernadotte; AKA Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte and King of Sweden and Norway Charles XIV John/Carl John. Along with this figure from the post you will also discover within the research of said; his many many contemporaries from which should offer you several other opportunities to create new videos for your channel.

Oh wow, way to rock that scruff Simon!

Can you do a video of Czar Alexander 3 and Czar Nicholas?

very good D kelly