The Joyces moved to Trieste in June 1905 and remained there until 1915 and during these years they had two children, Giorgio in 1905 and Lucia in 1907.

In 1931 Lucia suffered her first bout of schizophrenia which was to shadow Joyce throughout his life.

Lucia was a difficult child and often ill. Nora Joyce, James’s partner loved Lucia, but preferred her son Giorgio.

Giorgio and Lucia seemed set for artistic careers. Lucia became proficient at piano and modern dance and even performed. She was tall and angular, smoked a lot and had a cast in her eye which made her look somewhat cross-eyed.

She was treated as a child by her parents and this led to her immaturity, and at 21 she was noticeably odd to people. They agreed to an operation on her eye in Paris. It was a success resulting in both eyes straight.

At 23, in 1930, she was desperate to find a husband. Samuel Beckett was suggested but rejected her, and her already frail personality suffered the shock of this. She also learned that she was illegitimate, that is her parents James and Nora were not married at her birth. Nora was reported to shout “Bastard” at her in fits of temper and Lucia would retort, “who made me one?”

She was taken to a psychiatric hospital where a women named Mary Colum was convinced she could cure her, and went so far as to sleep in the same bed and even pinned their nightdresses together in case Lucia tried to escape. She was able to discharge herself, because she was not certified as legally insane.

After more attacks of hysteria and mind flashes, the doctors suggested solitary confinement with only a peephole on the door. Joyce objected and smuggled Lucia out of the hospital. He chose a different method of treatment for his daughter and picked a private nurse to move in to a chalet near their home in case of any attacks.

It was a far more humane treatment and a lot freer, but Lucia in her schizophrenia now believed that her father was pushing her around.

In another episode Lucia was sent to Dublin to see an American psychoanalyst and wandered so frequently that two nurses had to live with her. Once she was found in a hedge at the foot of the Sugarloaf mountain and another time in Bray. She also spent time in hospitals in London around 1935.

When the war broke out, Joyce decided to move the whole family including Lucia to Switzerland from occupied France but because of Lucia’s British passport it was not granted.

The German embassy then received a second letter for Joyce’s daughter to join the family in Switzerland but Joyce died while waiting for the reply in 1941. Lucia was to say of her dead father that “he is watching us all the time.”

She then stayed in France for 30 years under incarceration with hardly a visit from Giorgio or Nora and begged for people to come and fetch her. They never did.

She was then moved to a hospital in England when her mother died and remained there for the last thirty years of her life. She died on the 12 December 1982 in Northhampton,

Schizophrenia Ireland runs an information helpline at 1890 621631.

Above: Giorgio, Nora and Lucia.