Oliver Joseph St. John Gogarty (17 August 1878 – 22 September 1957) was an Irish poet, author,
otolaryngologist, athlete, politician, and well-known conversationalist. He served as the inspiration for
Buck Mulligan
Malachi Roland St. John "Buck" Mulligan is a fictional character in James Joyce's 1922 novel '' Ulysses''. He appears most prominently in episode 1 ''(Telemachus)'', and is the subject of the novel's famous first sentence:
"Stately, plump Buck ...
in
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
's novel ''
Ulysses
Ulysses is one form of the Roman name for Odysseus, a hero in ancient Greek literature.
Ulysses may also refer to:
People
* Ulysses (given name), including a list of people with this name
Places in the United States
* Ulysses, Kansas
* Ulysse ...
''.
Life
Early life
Gogarty was born 17 August 1878 in
Rutland Square,
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
, the eldest child of Henry Gogarty, a well-to-do Dublin physician, and Margaret Gogarty (née Oliver), the daughter of a
Galway
Galway ( ; ga, Gaillimh, ) is a City status in Ireland, city in the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht, which is the county town of County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lo ...
mill owner. Three siblings (Henry, Mary, and Richard) were born later. Gogarty's father, himself the son of a medical doctor, had been educated at
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to:
Australia
* Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales
* Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
and owned two fashionable homes in Dublin, which set the Gogartys apart from other
Irish Catholic families at that time and allowed them access to the same social circles as the
Protestant Ascendancy.
Gogarty was sent by his father to the Christian Brothers' O'Connell School (North Richmond Street, Dublin), which he happily attended, 1890-92. When his father died suddenly in 1891, his family then sent him to
Mungret College, a boarding school near
Limerick
Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2016 ...
. He was unhappy in his new school, and the following year he transferred to
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College is a co-educational Catholic Church, Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit tradition, on the Stonyhurst, Stonyhurst Estate, Lancashire, England. It occupies a Grade I listed building. Th ...
in Lancashire, England, which he liked little better, later referring to it as "a religious jail".
Gogarty returned to Ireland in 1896 and boarded at
Clongowes Wood College
Clongowes Wood College SJ is a voluntary boarding school for boys near Clane, County Kildare, Ireland, founded by the Jesuits in 1814, which features prominently in James Joyce's semi-autobiographical novel ''A Portrait of the Artist as a Yo ...
while studying for examinations with the
Royal University of Ireland. He was a talented athlete; in England he had briefly played for the
Preston North End FC Reserve, and while at
Clongowes
Clongowes Wood College SJ is a voluntary boarding school for boys near Clane, County Kildare, Ireland, founded by the Jesuits in 1814, which features prominently in James Joyce's semi-autobiographical novel ''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young ...
he played for the
Bohemian FC. He also played on Clongowes's soccer and
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
elevens. His extracurricular interests, which also included cycling and drinking, prevented him from being an attentive student, and in 1898 he switched to the medical school at
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to:
Australia
* Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales
* Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
, having failed eight of his ten
examinations at the
Royal
Royal may refer to:
People
* Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name
* A member of a royal family
Places United States
* Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Royal, Illinois, a village
* Royal, Iowa, a cit ...
.
University days
As one of Dublin's "
medicos", Gogarty was known to be fond of public pranks and midnight carousing in "the Kips", Dublin's red-light district. He had a talent for
humorous
Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in t ...
and
bawdy verse, which quickly made the rounds through the city, and sometimes composed
mnemonic
A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding.
Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imag ...
lyrics to aid his medical studies. He also enjoyed a highly successful cycling career before being banned from the tracks in 1901 for bad language, and between 1898 and 1901 he rescued at least four people from drowning. He became interested in
Irish nationalism after meeting
Arthur Griffith
Arthur Joseph Griffith ( ga, Art Seosamh Ó Gríobhtha; 31 March 1871 – 12 August 1922) was an Irish writer, newspaper editor and politician who founded the political party Sinn Féin. He led the Irish delegation at the negotiations that prod ...
in 1899, and contributed propaganda pieces to ''
'' over subsequent years.
![OSJGogarty1897](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/OSJGogarty1897.jpg)
A serious interest in poetry and literature also began to manifest itself during his years at Trinity. His witty conversation made him a favourite with the
dons, particularly
John Pentland Mahaffy
Sir John Pentland Mahaffy (26 February 183930 April 1919) was an Irish classicist and polymathic scholar.
Education and Academic career
He was born near Vevey in Switzerland on 26 February 1839 to Irish parents, Nathaniel Brindley Mahaffy and ...
(formerly the tutor of
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
) and
Robert Yelverton Tyrrell, and between 1901 and 1903 he won three successive Vice-Chancellor's prizes for verse. In 1900 he made the acquaintance of
W. B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
(of whom his mother highly approved) and of
George Moore (of whom she did not) and began to frequent
Dublin literary circles. He also formed close friendships with other up-and-coming young poets, such as
Seamus O'Sullivan
Seumas or Seamus O'Sullivan (born James Sullivan Starkey; 17 July 1879 – 24 March 1958) was an Irish poetry, Irish poet and editor of ''The Dublin Magazine''. His father, William Starkey (1836-1918), a physician, was also a poet and a friend of S ...
and
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
. In 1904 he spent two
terms at
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
to compete for the
Newdigate Prize, but lost to
G.K.A. Bell, the future
Bishop of Chichester, who became a friend and frequent correspondent over the next few years.
![James Joyce Martello Tower](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/James_Joyce_Martello_Tower.jpg)
Upon returning to Dublin in the summer of 1904, Gogarty made arrangements to rent the
Martello Tower in Sandycove. The primary goal of this scheme, as described by Gogarty in a letter to G.K.A. Bell, was to "house the Bard" (i.e. James Joyce), who was without money and required "a year in which to finish his novel." The two friends quarrelled in August, however, and Joyce either failed to move in or left shortly after doing so. Joyce briefly took up residence in the
Tower
A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...
the following month, together with Gogarty and his Oxford friend Samuel Chenevix Trench (a setup which later provided inspiration for the opening chapter of ''
Ulysses
Ulysses is one form of the Roman name for Odysseus, a hero in ancient Greek literature.
Ulysses may also refer to:
People
* Ulysses (given name), including a list of people with this name
Places in the United States
* Ulysses, Kansas
* Ulysse ...
)'' but left again suddenly after only six days. Forty years later in America, Gogarty would attribute Joyce's abrupt departure to his and S.C. Trench's midnight antics with a loaded
revolver
A revolver (also called a wheel gun) is a repeating handgun that has at least one barrel and uses a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold up to six roun ...
. Joyce and Gogarty corresponded intermittently during the early years of Joyce's continental exile and occasionally planned meetings, but contemporaneous letters from Joyce to his brother reveal deep distrust of Gogarty's motives, and their friendship was never fully renewed. Gogarty made use of the Martello Tower during the following year as a writing retreat and party venue, and officially held the lease until 1925.
In 1904 and 1905 Gogarty published several short poems in the London publication ''The Venture'' and in
John Eglinton
William Kirkpatrick Magee (16 January 1868 – 9 May 1961), was an Irish author, editor, and librarian, who as an essayist and poet adopted the pen-name of John Eglinton. He became head librarian of the National Library of Ireland, after opposing t ...
's journal ''Dana''. His name also appeared in print as the renegade priest Fr. Oliver Gogarty in George Moore's 1905 novel ''The Lake'', an occurrence which upset Gogarty's devout mother. In 1905 Gogarty became one of the founding members of
Arthur Griffith
Arthur Joseph Griffith ( ga, Art Seosamh Ó Gríobhtha; 31 March 1871 – 12 August 1922) was an Irish writer, newspaper editor and politician who founded the political party Sinn Féin. He led the Irish delegation at the negotiations that prod ...
's
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gri ...
, a
non-violent political movement with a plan for Irish autonomy modelled after the
Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy.
Medical career and family
![Nollgogarty](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Nollgogarty.jpg)
In August 1906, Gogarty married Martha Duane, a girl from a landowning
Connemara family. Eager to establish himself with a profession, he passed his final medical examinations in June 1907, several months after the death of his mother. In July 1907 his first son, Oliver Duane Odysseus Gogarty (known as "Noll") was born, and in autumn of that year Gogarty left for
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
to finish the practical phase of his medical training. Owing in part to the influence of his mentor,
Sir Robert Woods, Gogarty had decided to specialise in
otolaryngology, and in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
he studied under
Ottokar Chiari
Ottokar Chiari (1 February 1853 – 12 May 1918) was an Austrian laryngologist and professor at the University of Vienna who was a native of Prague.
At Vienna he was an assistant to Leopold von Schrötter (1837–1908), and later succeeded Ka ...
, Markus Hajek, and
Robert Bárány
Robert Bárány ( hu, Bárány Róbert, ; 22 April 1876 – 8 April 1936) was an Austrian-born otologist. He received the 1914 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the physiology and pathology of the vestibular apparatus.
Life ...
.
Returning to Dublin in 1908, Gogarty secured a post at Richmond Hospital, and shortly afterwards purchased a house in Ely Place opposite George Moore. Three years later, he joined the staff of the
Meath Hospital and remained there for the remainder of his medical career. He became known for flamboyant theatrics in the
operating room
Operation or Operations may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity
* Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory
* ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...
, including off-the-cuff witticisms and the flinging of recently removed
larynx
The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of larynx into pharynx known as the laryngeal inlet is about ...
es at the viewing gallery. He also maintained
ENT
Ents are a species of beings in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world Middle-earth who closely resemble trees; their leader is Treebeard of Fangorn forest. Their name is derived from an Old English word for giant.
The Ents appear in ''The Lord of ...
consulting rooms in
Ely Place
Ely Place is a gated road of multi-storey terraces at the southern tip of the London Borough of Camden in London, England. It hosts a 1773-rebuilt public house, Ye Olde Mitre, of Tudor origin and is adjacent to Hatton Garden.
It is privatel ...
, attracting a number of wealthy clients and attending to less well-off patients for free.
Gogarty and his wife went on to have two more children,
Dermot
Diarmaid () is a
masculine given name in the Irish language, which has historically been anglicized as Jeremiah or Jeremy, names with which it is etymologically unrelated. Earlier forms of the name include Diarmit and Diarmuit. Variations of the ...
(born 1908) and Brenda (born 1911), and in 1917 Gogarty purchased Renvyle House, a large
country house
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...
in
Renvyle
Renvyle or Rinvyle () is a peninsula and electoral division in North-West Connemara in County Galway, close to the border with County Mayo in Ireland.
History
The ruins of the castle of Grace O'Malley (''Gráinne Mhaol'') can be found on the p ...
,
Connemara, from
Caroline Blake
Caroline Blake born Caroline Johanna Burke (1835 – 23 February 1919) was an Irish landlord and hotelier. She became responsible for land and its tenants in County Galway. The Land League encouraged her tenents to not pay their rents and this red ...
. He became a keen
motorist
Driving is the controlled operation and movement of a vehicle, including cars, motorcycles, trucks, buses, and bicycles. Permission to drive on public highways is granted based on a set of conditions being met and drivers are required to follo ...
during this time, purchasing a succession of
cars that culminated with a buttercup-coloured
Rolls-Royce. During the following decade he was also interested in aviation, earning a
pilot's licence
Pilot licensing or certification refers to permits for operating aircraft. Flight crew licences are regulated by ICAO Annex 1 and issued by the civil aviation authority of each country. CAA’s have to establish that the holder has met a specifi ...
and helping to found the Irish Aero Club.
Free State Senator
As a
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gri ...
er during the
Irish War of Independence
The Irish War of Independence () or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-mil ...
, Gogarty participated in a variety of anti-
Black and Tan
A black and tan is a beer cocktail made by layering a pale beer (usually pale ale) and a dark beer (usually stout). In Ireland, the drink is called a half and half because in Ireland the term "''black and tan''" is considered to be offensive.
...
schemes, allowing his home to be used as a
safe house and transporting disguised
IRA
Ira or IRA may refer to:
*Ira (name), a Hebrew, Sanskrit, Russian or Finnish language personal name
*Ira (surname), a rare Estonian and some other language family name
*Iran, UNDP code IRA
Law
*Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, US, on status of ...
volunteers in his car. Following the
ratification
Ratification is a principal's approval of an act of its agent that lacked the authority to bind the principal legally. Ratification defines the international act in which a state indicates its consent to be bound to a treaty if the parties inten ...
of the
Anglo-Irish Treaty
The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty ( ga , An Conradh Angla-Éireannach), commonly known in Ireland as The Treaty and officially the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was an agreement between the government of the ...
, Gogarty sided with the
pro-Treaty government (headed by his close friend
Arthur Griffith
Arthur Joseph Griffith ( ga, Art Seosamh Ó Gríobhtha; 31 March 1871 – 12 August 1922) was an Irish writer, newspaper editor and politician who founded the political party Sinn Féin. He led the Irish delegation at the negotiations that prod ...
) and was made a
Free State Senator.
When Griffith fell ill during the summer of 1922, Gogarty frequently attended his bedside. His death on 12 August 1922 had a profound effect on Gogarty;
W.T. Cosgrave later observed that "he was almost mortally wounded when Griffith died, he was so very, very much attached to him." Gogarty carried out Griffith's official
autopsy
An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any di ...
and
embalmment, and went on to perform the same offices for
Michael Collins Michael Collins or Mike Collins most commonly refers to:
* Michael Collins (Irish leader) (1890–1922), Irish revolutionary leader, soldier, and politician
* Michael Collins (astronaut) (1930–2021), American astronaut, member of Apollo 11 and Ge ...
, another close friend whom Gogarty had often sheltered in his Ely Place home prior to his assassination. It was rumoured that Griffith had been planning to make Gogarty the new
Governor-General of the Irish Free State
The Governor-General of the Irish Free State ( ga, Seanascal Shaorstát Éireann) was the official representative of the sovereign of the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1936. By convention, the office was largely ceremonial. Nonetheless, it wa ...
, but in his absence the post went to
Tim Healy.
![Gogarty1922](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Gogarty1922.jpg)
In November 1922, anti-Treaty
IRA
Ira or IRA may refer to:
*Ira (name), a Hebrew, Sanskrit, Russian or Finnish language personal name
*Ira (surname), a rare Estonian and some other language family name
*Iran, UNDP code IRA
Law
*Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, US, on status of ...
commander
Liam Lynch issued a general order to his forces to shoot
Free State Senators. Two months later, Gogarty was
kidnapped
Kidnapped may refer to:
* subject to the crime of kidnapping
Literature
* ''Kidnapped'' (novel), an 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson
* ''Kidnapped'' (comics), a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's novel by Alan Grant and Ca ...
by a group of anti-Treaty militants, who lured him out of his house and into a waiting car under the pretext of bringing him to visit a sick patient. Gogarty was subsequently driven to an empty house near
Chapelizod and held under armed guard. Aware that he might be in imminent danger of execution, Gogarty contrived to have himself led out into the garden (purportedly by claiming to be suffering from
diarrhoea
Diarrhea, also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having at least three loose, liquid, or watery bowel movements each day. It often lasts for a few days and can result in dehydration due to fluid loss. Signs of dehydration often begin wi ...
), where he broke free from his captors and flung himself into the
Liffey; he then swam to shore and delivered himself to the protection of the police barracks in
Phoenix Park
The Phoenix Park ( ga, Páirc an Fhionnuisce) is a large urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its perimeter wall encloses of recreational space. It includes large areas of grassland and tre ...
. In February of that same year,
Renvyle was burnt to the ground by anti-Treaty forces. Following these incidents, Gogarty relocated his family and practice to London, where he resided until February 1924. Upon returning to Ireland, he famously released two swans into the
River Liffey in gratitude for his life.
Gogarty remained a senator until the abolition of the
Seanad in 1936, during which time he identified with none of the existing political parties and voted according to his own whims. He believed that Ireland should retain its dominion status in the
British Commonwealth so as to "keep with nations who understand that the first principle of freedom is a freedom that does not permit interference with the personal liberties of the citizen." He supported rural electrification schemes, road improvement,
reforestation
Reforestation (occasionally, reafforestation) is the natural or intentional restocking of existing forests and woodlands (forestation) that have been depleted, usually through deforestation, but also after clearcutting.
Management
A debate ...
and
conservation
Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws.
Conservation may also refer to:
Environment and natural resources
* Nature conservation, the protection and manageme ...
, prevention of livestock cruelty, and
educational reform. His views on controversial issues such as censorship and
birth control
Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...
were ambiguous; after expressing initial support for the Censorship Bill, he eventually went on to denounce it in scathing terms ("I think it is high time the men of this country found some other way of loving God than by hating women"), and while generally professing to oppose the sale of prophylactics, he voiced support for their usage in certain cases. He was most passionate on the subject of sanitation in schools and in urban and rural housing, about which he spoke frequently. His speeches frequently contained
puns, wordplays, and extended poetic quotations, and were sometimes given in favour of facetious schemes, such as his attempt to have the
phoenix statue in
Phoenix Park
The Phoenix Park ( ga, Páirc an Fhionnuisce) is a large urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its perimeter wall encloses of recreational space. It includes large areas of grassland and tre ...
included in the 1929 Wild Birds Protection Bill. He was notoriously scornful of the government's attempts to reinstate the
Irish language
Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...
(which he referred to as "Woolworth's Irish"), proposing that funding be used instead for housing and school health services, and remained perpetually suspicious of
Éamon de Valera, against whose economic policies, character, and personal appearance he often hurled invectives during Seanad proceedings.
De Valera eventually dissolved the Seanad when it persisted in obstructing Government proposals, effectively ending Gogarty's political career.
Literary endeavours
Gogarty maintained close friendships with
W. B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
,
AE, George Moore,
Lord Dunsany
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (; 24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957, usually Lord Dunsany) was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist. Over 90 volumes of fiction, essays, poems and plays appeared in his lifetime.Lanham, M ...
,
James Stephens,
Seamus O'Sullivan
Seumas or Seamus O'Sullivan (born James Sullivan Starkey; 17 July 1879 – 24 March 1958) was an Irish poetry, Irish poet and editor of ''The Dublin Magazine''. His father, William Starkey (1836-1918), a physician, was also a poet and a friend of S ...
, and other Dublin literati, and continued to write poetry in the midst of his political and professional duties. Three small books of poetry (''Hyperthuleana'', ''Secret Springs of Dublin Song'', and ''The Ship and Other Poems'') were published between 1916 and 1918. Gogarty also tried his hand at
playwriting, producing a slum drama (''
Blight
Blight refers to a specific symptom affecting plants in response to infection by a pathogenic organism.
Description
Blight is a rapid and complete chlorosis, browning, then death of plant tissues such as leaves, branches, twigs, or floral organ ...
'') in 1917 under the pseudonym "Alpha and Omega", and two comedies (''A Serious Thing'' and ''The Enchanted Trousers'') in 1919 under the pseudonym "
Gideon Ouseley
Gideon Ouseley (24 February 1762 – 13 May 1839) was born into an Anglican gentry family in Dunmore, County Galway.
Biography
His father, although a deist, intended that his son enter the clergy, but Ouseley spent much of his childhood in ...
", all three of which were performed at the
Abbey Theatre
The Abbey Theatre ( ga, Amharclann na Mainistreach), also known as the National Theatre of Ireland ( ga, Amharclann Náisiúnta na hÉireann), in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the country's leading cultural institutions. First opening to the pu ...
.
Gogarty devoted less energy to his medical practice and more to his writing during the twenties and thirties. His 1924 book of poetry ''An Offering of Swans'' won the Gold Medal for poetry at the revived
Tailteann Games Tailteann Games or Aonach Tailteann may refer to:
* Tailteann Games (ancient) sporting and religious festival in Gaelic Ireland
* Tailteann Games (Irish Free State) held 1924–32
* Tailteann Games, Athletics Ireland
Athletics Ireland, officiall ...
, for which he also wrote the 1924 Olympic bronze medal-winning ''Tailteann Ode'' (which he was later to describe as "rather tripe"). In 1929 another book of verse, ''Wild Apples'', was published, and was followed in 1933 by ''Selected Poems''. Gogarty was also a member of
Yeats's Irish Academy of Letters and frequently assisted in arranging its social functions. 1936 saw the publication of
Yeats's ''
Oxford Book of Modern Verse
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...
'', which contained seventeen of Gogarty's poems and an introduction proclaiming him "one of the great lyric poets of our age." The over-representation given to Gogarty outraged many poets and perplexed Gogarty himself, who remarked, "What right have I to figure so bulkily? None from a poetical point of view...
Sappho
Sappho (; el, Σαπφώ ''Sapphō'' ; Aeolic Greek ''Psápphō''; c. 630 – c. 570 BC) was an Archaic Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her Greek lyric, lyric poetry, written to be sung while ...
herself could not have made a more subjective anthology."
In 1935 Gogarty published his first prose work, ''
As I Was Going Down Sackville Street'' (subtitled "A Phantasy in Fact"), a semi-fictional novel-memoir that tells, in reverse chronological order, the story of Gogarty's Dublin through a series of interconnected anecdotes and lively characters sketches. Shortly after its publication, it became the subject of a lawsuit by a Jewish
art dealer
An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art.
An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and builds relationshi ...
, Harry Sinclair, who claimed that he and his recently deceased twin brother, William Sinclair, had been
libel
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
ed by the publication. The two men did not appear as named characters in the book, but some derogatory lines of verse beginning ''"Two Jews grew in Sackville Street"'', written by Gogarty's friend George Redding and included in a scene in the novel, were widely known to refer to the Sinclair siblings. Harry Sinclair further recognised a reference to his grandfather, described in the text as one who "enticed little girls into his office", an offence of which his grandfather had in fact been convicted. Gogarty responded to the charges by claiming that the unnamed Jews were parodies or composite characters rather than deliberate evocations of living persons. The case attracted a great deal of public attention, with one commentator observing that "only ''
The Pickwick Papers'', rewritten by James Joyce, could really capture the mood of this trial." Among the witnesses for the prosecution was William Sinclair's nephew-by-marriage,
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...
, then a little-known writer, who was humiliatingly denounced as a "bawd and blasphemer" by Gogarty's counsel. Gogarty ultimately lost the lawsuit and was ordered to pay £900 in damages, plus court costs. This outcome deeply embittered Gogarty, who had already suffered financial setbacks after the
stock market crash of 1929 and felt that the verdict had been politically motivated.
In spite of the ''Sackville Street'' imbroglio, Gogarty's output over the next two years was prolific. In 1938 he published ''I Follow St. Patrick'', a historical and geographic portrait of Ireland as told through Gogarty's rambling visits to various sites traditionally associated with
St. Patrick
ST, St, or St. may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Stanza, in poetry
* Suicidal Tendencies, an American heavy metal/hardcore punk band
* Star Trek, a science-fiction media franchise
* Summa Theologica, a compendium of Catholic philosophy an ...
; in 1939 he published ''Tumbling in the Hay'', a semi-autobiographical comic novel about medical students in turn-of-the-century Dublin, and ''Elbow Room'', another collection of poetry. In 1938 he relocated to London for a second time and brought forth his own libel suit against the young poet
Patrick Kavanagh, whose autobiography ''The Green Fool'' said of
Kavanagh's first visit to Gogarty's home: "I mistook Gogarty's white-robed maid for his wife or his mistress; I expected every poet to have a spare wife." Gogarty, who had taken offence at the close coupling of the words "wife" and "mistress", was awarded £100 in damages.
American years
With the onset of World War II, Gogarty, who was an enthusiastic and talented amateur
aviator
An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...
, attempted to enlist in the
RAF and the
RAMC
The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps a ...
as a doctor. He was denied on grounds of age. He then departed in September 1939 for an extended lecture tour in the United States, leaving his wife to manage Renvyle House, which had since been rebuilt as a hotel. When his return to Ireland was delayed by the war, Gogarty applied for American citizenship, and eventually decided to reside permanently in the United States. Though he regularly sent letters, funds, and care-packages to his family and returned home for occasional holiday visits, he never again lived in Ireland for any extended length of time. His primary American residence was in New York, where he was known to frequent bars on
Third Avenue
Third Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan, as well as in the center portion of the Bronx. Its southern end is at Astor Place and St. Mark's Place. It transitions into Cooper Square ...
. He also spent time in
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
and in Wyckoff,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
.
Feeling that he was too old to sit for the medical examinations that would have qualified him as a practitioner in the United States, Gogarty instead chose to support himself entirely by his writing. In addition to various essays and short stories, his prose output included ''Going Native'', a satire on English social mores, ''Mad Grandeur'' and ''Mr. Petunia'', two period narratives composed with an eye to having them optioned as Hollywood films, and ''Rolling Down the Lea'' and ''It Isn't This Time of Year at All!'', two loosely constructed memoirs. He also published two books of poems, ''Perennial'' and ''Unselected Poems''; a collection of bawdy verse, ''The Merry Muses of Hibernia'', was planned but never completed. Gogarty's literary output during the forties and fifties is generally considered to be inferior to his earlier writings.
Gogarty suffered from heart complaints during the last few years of his life, and in September 1957 he collapsed in the street on his way to dinner. He died on 22 September 1957; his body was flown home to Ireland and buried in Cartron Church, Moyard, near Renvyle.
Literary portrayal
![Revolutionary Joyce Better Contrast](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Revolutionary_Joyce_Better_Contrast.jpg)
A highly visible and distinctive Dublin character during his lifetime, Gogarty appears in a number of memoirs penned by his contemporaries, notably George Moore's ''Hail and Farewell'', where he goes both by his own name and by the pseudonym "Conan". His most famous literary incarnation, however, is as
Buck Mulligan
Malachi Roland St. John "Buck" Mulligan is a fictional character in James Joyce's 1922 novel '' Ulysses''. He appears most prominently in episode 1 ''(Telemachus)'', and is the subject of the novel's famous first sentence:
"Stately, plump Buck ...
, the irrepressible roommate of
Stephen Dedalus
Stephen Dedalus is James Joyce's literary alter ego, appearing as the protagonist and antihero of his first, semi-autobiographic novel of artistic existence ''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'' (1916) and an important character in Joyce' ...
in James Joyce's ''Ulysses''. Mulligan quotes a number of songs and poems known to have been written by Gogarty, the most famous of which,
"The Song of the Cheerful (But Slightly Sarcastic) Jesus", was originally sent to Joyce as a belated Christmas peace offering after their quarrels of 1904. Other details, such as Mulligan's
Hellenism, his status as a medical student, his history of saving men from drowning, his friendship with George Moore, and the metrical arrangement of his full name (Malachi Roland St. John Mulligan) parallel Gogarty's biography. Due to his influence on Joyce (he is also sometimes cited as an inspiration for ''
Dubliners'' character Ignatius Gallaher and ''
Exiles
Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...
'' antagonist Robert Hand), Gogarty's name often comes up in Joyce scholarship, though Gogarty's own editors and biographers have complained that these references are frequently inaccurate, owing to Gogarty-related errata in
Richard Ellmann's ''James Joyce'' and a tendency to conflate the real-life Gogarty with the fictional character of Buck Mulligan.
It has also been suggested that the speaker of W. B. Yeats's poem ''High Talk'', "Malachi Stilt-Jack", is intended to be a representation of Gogarty.
Legacy
A pub in the
Temple Bar district of Dublin is named after him, and an annual Oliver St. John Gogarty Literary Festival is held in the author's family home, now the Renvyle House Hotel in
Connemara. A surgical ward in the descendant hospital of his workplace, the
Tallaght University Hospital, now also bears his name.
William Dawson wrote ''The Lay of Oliver Gogarty'' about his kidnap and escape.
A documentary on Gogarty, ''Oliver St. John Gogarty: Silence Would Never Do'' was produced in 1987.
Books
*''Hyperthuleana'' (1916)
![Gogarty](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Gogarty.JPG)
*''
Blight: The Tragedy of Dublin'' (1917)
*''Secret Springs of Dublin Song'' (1918)
*''The Ship and Other Poems'' (1918)
*''A Serious Thing'' (1919)
*''The Enchanted Trousers'' (1919)
*''An Offering of Swans'' (1923)
*''An Offering of Swans and Other Poems'' (1924)
*''Wild Apples'' (three versions: 1928, 1929, 1930)
*''Selected Poems'' (1933)
*''
As I Was Going Down Sackville Street'' (1937)
*''Others to Adorn'' (1938)
*''I Follow St. Patrick'' (1938)
*''Elbow Room'' (two versions: 1939, 1942)
*''Tumbling in the Hay'' (1939)
*''Going Native'' (1940)
*''Mad Grandeur'' (1941)
*''Perennial'' (two versions: 1944, 1946)
*''Mr. Petunia'' (1946)
*''Mourning Became Mrs. Spendlove'' (1948)
*''Rolling Down the Lea'' (1949)
*''Intimations'' (1950)
*''Collected Poems'' (1951)
*''Unselected Poems'' (1954)
*''It Isn't This Time of Year At All!: An Unpremeditated Autobiography'' (1954)
*''Start From Somewhere Else'' (1955)
*''A Weekend in the Middle of the Week'' (1958)
*''The Poems & Plays of Oliver St. John Gogarty'' (containing rare and unpublished material, 2001)
Arms
Sources
Biography
*
*
*
*
J. B. Lyons, ''Oliver St. John Gogarty'' (1976, 1980)
External links
Robot Wisdom's Joyce Page*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20071017184802/http://www.bohemians.ie/index.php/history/gogarty-part-1.htm Gogarty as sportsman*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gogarty, Oliver St John
1878 births
1957 deaths
Alumni of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
Alumni of the Royal University of Ireland
Alumni of Trinity College Dublin
Bohemian F.C. players
Irish memoirists
Irish poets
Members of the 1922 Seanad
Members of the 1925 Seanad
Members of the 1928 Seanad
Members of the 1931 Seanad
Members of the 1934 Seanad
Writers from Dublin (city)
Olympic bronze medalists in art competitions
Olympic artists for Ireland
Olympic bronze medalists for Ireland
Irish association footballers (before 1923)
People educated at Stonyhurst College
People educated at Clongowes Wood College
People of the Irish Civil War (Pro-Treaty side)
Ulysses (novel)
Medalists at the 1924 Summer Olympics
Irish medical writers
Cumann na nGaedheal senators
Fine Gael senators
Association footballers not categorized by position
Olympic competitors in art competitions
Conversationalists