The proposal by two Dublin city councillors that James Joyce’s remains should be repatriated in time for the centenary of the publication of Ulysses in 2022 has not met with an enthusiastic response. Joyce died in Zurich in 1941 and is buried in the city’s Fluntern cemetery, his funeral was attended by a representative of the British government but not by an Irish one. We might do greater justice to Joyce’s memory and his convictions by continuing to respect the integrity of his dispute with the country in which he was raisedJoyce was not alone among famous Irish writers in living – and dying – abroad. One of his friends, in an appreciation in this newspaper following Joyce’s death in 1941, wrote that he was “worth half a dozen Irish legations” in any country he chose to live in. “In making Dublin famous he made Ireland famous in European letters.”Perhaps that is enough.

Source: The Irish Times October 25, 2019 23:03 UTC