Joyce Museum cut from will

Press, 13 January 1987, Page 5

Joyce Museum cut from will

NZPA Dublin The grandson of the Irish author, James Joyce, cut the Joyce Museum in Dublin out of his will after rows over the novelist’s death mask and the selling of Joyce souvenirs. Stephen Joyce, last llv- , ing descendant of the novelist, told Irish Radio from his home in Paris that he objected to “this ludicrous commercial exploitation of my grandfather’s name and writing.” He said he was stopping bequests to the museum. A death mask of Joyce was the centre of a dispute last year. The mask was given to an Irish architect, Michael Scott, founder of the Joyce Museum, which is now owned by the Irish Tourist Board. Mr Scott sold the mask to a wealthy Irish businessman, provoking outrage from Stephen Joyce. “The sale was eventually rescinded, and Scott quietly handed the mask over to the museum,” the institution’s curator, Robert Nicholson said. This year the museum, housed in a tower overlooking Dublin Bay, started to sell ties and

soap, all inspired by aspects of Joyce’s 1922 masterpiece, “Ulysses.” Stephen Joyce said of the death mask: “It is not a fit object for sale or barter to the market place and to put it in this category is to some degree disrespectful to Joyce himself.” He and his wife have decided to stop bequests they planned to make in their wills to the museum, including one of the author’s rings, a painting of Joyce, and a poem in manuscript “We have not taken this decision lightly. It has been forced on us by events. The battle over the death mask left lasting scars on us,” he said.