Cosgrave and Nora
Jorn Barger
Cosgrave played in the earliest days, and whether there might have been
some truth in his 1909 claim to have seen her regularly for a time.
Byrne persistently claimed Cosgrave introduced Nora to Joyce.
On Tuesday I wrote, of JAJ and Gogarty in 1903:
> Padraic Colum crosses paths with them a lot in this period.
Colum has a specific memory of Joyce and Cosgrave (or maybe Elwood) that
he places as being shortly after a Dublin production of "Doll's House".
I find only one known production in this period-- June 1903. But this
was while May lay dying, and while Gogarty was available in preference
to Cosgrave, so I think more likely Colum was confused and meant the
April 1904 production of 'Hedda Gabler'.
In late April 1904 Gogarty was at Oxford, and Joyce was definitely
whoring around with Cosgrave, as depicted in 'Circe'.
Colum tells how he sees the two of them at the National Library as he's
taking out a book by Nietzsche, and Joyce jokes that he and Cosgrave are
"two frightful examples of the will to live" (ie, going around picking
up girls) [ofjj47]
I'd imagine that in his friendships with both Gogarty and Cosgrave,
Joyce was relying on _them_ to break the ice with strangers and
compensate for his own shyness... so I wonder if the first meeting with
Nora didn't follow this plan?
Cosgrave and Joyce are together, they see Nora, Cosgrave chats her up,
but Joyce manages to make the first date. In a sense, Cosgrave has
'introduced' them, but only just barely.
Support for this comes from 'Exiles' where the character Robert owes as
much or more to Cosgrave as to Gogarty (Maddox claims JAJ never
introduced Nora to Gogarty at all):
ROBERT: ...you slighted the common simple gift I had to
offer you-- and took his gift instead.
BERTHA: (Looking at him.) But you never...
ROBERT: No. Because you had chosen him. I saw that. I saw
it on the first night we met, we three together. Why did
you choose him?
BERTHA: (Bends her head.) Is that not love?
ROBERT: (Continuing.) And every night when we two-- he
and I-- came to that corner to meet you I saw it and felt it.
You remember the corner, Bertha?
BERTHA: (As before.) Yes.
ROBERT: And when you and he went away for your walk
and I went along the street alone I felt it... But why did you
choose him? Did you not like me at all?
BERTHA: Yes. I liked you because you were his friend. We
often spoke about you. Often and often...
ROBERT: I failed. She is yours, as she was nine years ago,
when you met her first.
RICHARD: When we met her first, you mean...
Between 10Jun when they met, and 23Jun when she started calling him 'my
precious darling' there was precious little time for Nora to betray him
with Cosgrave-- maybe 14Jun, at the worst.
And if she wasn't as fast as everyone likes to think (handjob-day being
27Aug not 16Jun) then Cosgrave couldn't have gotten far at all.
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