http://www.joycetower.ie/   Daniel O’Connell, Bantry Gang, Victoria Hotel, Cork.

 

James Joyce was on his paternal grandmother’s side a direct descendant of Daniel O’Connell.   His father in various guises features prominently in the works.  He  was on the edge of ‘The Bantry Gang’ of politicians but after the fall of Parnell loathed Tim Healy.  In his youth he studied medicine for a period in what is now UCC.  College folklore had it that up the 1970s, the desk with his initials carved into it was in the medical lecture theatre. The family owned extensive property around Rocksavage/South Terrace in Cork which was over time dissipated.  James Joyce’s journey with his father to Cork and his stay at the Victoria Hotel is in Portrait of an Artist