Sir, – The notion of returning James Joyce’s remains from Zurich to Ireland, as Anthony Jordan suggests, should take into account that Joyce chose to remain officially British to his death in 1941.
Joyce positively rejected Irish nationality on several occasions.
Living in Paris in 1930, he wrote to his son Giorgio: “Some days ago I had to renew my passport. The clerk told me he had orders to send people like me to the Irish delegation. But I insisted instead and got a British one.”
A decade later, the Joyce family were again offered Irish passports which would have enabled them to leave Nazi-occupied France more easily if needed.
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The offer was declined and Joyce clung doggedly to his British passport, despite the increased risk.
In like fashion, Samuel Beckett never obtained an Irish passport, always travelling on his British one, explaining that a person of his standing could hardly travel on a passport from “a wee little country like that.” – Yours, etc,
Dr JOHN DOHERTY,
Gaoth Dobhair,
Co Dhún na nGall.