A day late Bloomsday post from our own J.M. Tyree’s new and excellent website/literary project, The Owls.
Gogarty and James Joyce met in 1903. Milling around the check-out desk at the National Library, the two young men fell into a conversation about Yeats, as one does. Both sniffed out the competition, and from then on their relationship consisted almost entirely of ball-busting and back-handed praise. Gogarty referred to Joyce as the “Dante of Dublin” and Joyce accused Gogarty of lacking sincerity. At the time, Joyce didn’t really drink. He was determined to be a rebel in his own land, but Gogarty, an accomplished drinker, took it upon himself to teach his friend about the pleasures of the national wine – stout. Joyce was a quick study. Money was often an issue with these two. Joyce, knowing that he was a genius, felt it a great injustice that he had to keep borrowing money from a hack like Gogarty. He once asked to borrow Gogarty’s rifle, for some unspecified purporse, and not long after Gogarty found out that Joyce had pawned it. Their decision to become roommates, a few months later, would prove disastrous.
more from Jim Gavin at The Owls here.