My surname is Joyce. As far as I know, I’m not related to James Joyce (a lot of people have asked me that lately!). However, I am related to Thomas Joseph Joyce, my adorable grandfather, also known to us his grandchildren as Papa. He grew up in Dublin’s fair city and stayed within Dublin in his adult years in Clontarf. I loved that house in Prospect and even more, I loved visiting, if only to see the warm loving smile that I remember Papa always having. Joe, using his second name , rather than his first that is Thomas, fathered two sons and three daughters. One of those sons is my father, Vivian. Papa passed away sadly in ’97. Kevin my uncle, the older of the two boys, passed away in 2000. My beloved father Vivian passed away this April. I miss him dearly. My two lovely brothers Joe and Mike are the only two boys in the family to carry on the Joyce name. Though I’m thinking my children will be blessed with having a double barrel name, I will be keeping my surname when I marry my man, as Joyce is currently and will remain my art signature.
To continue on with my story of my name, or what it is I know of my name, some of you may know that I spent a large portion of my childhood years in Galway. More specifically, that time in Galway was split between living in Cornamona for the first few years and then in Headford for the latter of those years. Corrnamona is a very small village in the heart of Connemara. Connemara and it’s surroundings have long been known also as ‘Joyce Country’. I have never known the detailed reason for this. However I can only assume that it is so named due to the families that first settled in Connemara being of the Joyce name. This begs the question, are my descendants on the Joyce side of my family, originally from Connemara? I may find out the answer to that if I ever get around to digging into it.
Connemara
Corr Na Mona
Connemara also known as ‘Joyce Country’
Now for the second part of the story… my lovely mother Brid is from Corr na Mona. Her maiden name O’ Halloran. She was born there, grew up there, moved to Dublin to study teaching and to teach and moved back to Corr na Mona, to live in a house, none other than the very house she grew up in, with her five children and husband, my dad Vivian. I find it ironic that my mother married a Joyce man from Dublin when she herself is from ‘Joyce Country’. Again, it begs the question, would my fathers descendants have somehow known my mothers descendants? Did they work the bog together, did they share a well, did they drink hot whiskeys together on cold winter nights? I do not think my mother will have these answers, and my dote of a grandmother Nora and my grandfather Patrick have long since passed away, leaving these questions unanswered for the moment.
As I write in my bio’s in different places, I am ever grateful for the time I spent living in Corr na Mona. The years I lived there, in my mothers first home, running around the fields, playing in the haybarn, climbing up to the well, as my mother did when she was a child, I feel have somehow managed to play a large part in how I use my imagination and bring the color, vibrancy and freedom to the paintings I produce today.
And so…To you my father, Vivian, artistic and brilliantly talented teacher, I thank you for the artistic skills you passed onto me and for teaching me my tables and my Irish spellings and for making me more popular than I have ever been when you were a sub teacher in my school for a week (among other things, not mentioning my sometimes foul language…how very Irish..)……And to you my mother, Brid, kind, gentle, beautiful and also a wonderfully talented teacher…I thank you for everything you have done in your life that was done out of love for us…. and for teaching me about understanding, about love, about being who you are and accepting others. Also Mam, thank you for my brunette hair, my looking younger than I actually am and my lovely family…
Corr na Mona
Aoife Joyce
