Madam, – Please, no more Paddywhackery about returning James Joyce’s remains to Ireland as suggested in Denis McClean’s Irishman’s Diary (January 7th).
Joyce was one of our first Europeans. He fled Ireland to live and work on the Continent where he died and should be allowed to remain. Ireland consistently rejected Joyce. No Irish government representative attended his funeral on January 15th, 1941.
It was left to the British Minister to Berne, Lord Derwent, to deliver an address.
The Irish Independentcastigated him on his death for having "reviled the religion in which he had been brought up and fouled the nest which was his native city". Attitudes only changed here to the jingle of cashtills, as visitors arrived to see Ulyssian landmarks.
Having pilgrimaged to Joyce’s grave in Zurich’s supremely beautiful Fluntern cemetery, I have no doubt but that he should be left in peace there, under Milton Hebald’s playful sculpture. In Switzerland which, unlike Ireland, twice sheltered him in times of crisis. – Yours, etc,