DOI: 10.7925/drs1.ucdlib_286000
title: Constantine Curran / Helen Laird Correspondence Part 1
title: Constantine Curran Joyce Collection

description: This collection, which is part of the larger Constantine Curran/Helen Laird letter collection, contains material by and relating to James Joyce. It comprises 133 letters by or relating to James Joyce, members of his family, and others closely associated with him. The collection includes 25 letters from Joyce to Curran, letters from Joyce's brother Stanislaus, and correspondence from associates and friends of Joyce such as Paul Leon, Harriet Shaw Weaver, and Sylvia Beach.
description: Scope and content: This collection, which is part of the larger Constantine Curran/Helen Laird letter collection, contains material by and relating to James Joyce. It comprises 133 letters by or relating to James Joyce, members of his family, and others closely associated with him. There are 25 letters from Joyce to Curran written between 1904 and 1940. In these letters he speaks about the progress of his work and many of the later letters mention family matters. There are 30 letters from Joyce's close associate and friend, Paul Leon, dating from the 1932-1941. In some of these letters, Leon is writing to Curran to Joyce's behalf and many of these letters mention Joyce's family affairs. The final letter from 1941 pertains to Leon's donation of Joyce letters to the National Library of Ireland. There are ten letters from James Joyce's brother Stanislaus Joyce relating to his own life and that of his brother and his brother's work. The collection includes 16 letters from Harriet Shaw Weaver and correspondence from Maria Jolas, J.F. Byrne, John J. Slocum and Stuart Gilbert.
description: Biographical/historical information: Constantine Curran (1883-1972) was a lawyer, writer, and historian of 18th Century Dublin architecture, sculpture and plasterwork. He also held a lifelong interest in art and literature. Curran attended UCD where he graduated BA (1902) and MA (1906). It was at UCD that Curran first met James Joyce, with whom he would maintain an important lifelong friendship and association. This correspondence throws light on that friendship and the friendship that grew between the Joyce and Curran families. Curran features once by name in Ulysses, is represented in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and, according to Richard Ellmann, was one of three models used by Joyce for the character of Gabriel in The Dead. He took the well-known photograph of Joyce standing in front of a glasshouse with his hands in his pockets in his own garden. Curran married the actress, costumier, teacher, and suffragist Helen Laird (1874-1957) in December 1913. With the blending of their social circles a vibrant and diverse group of artists, historians, playwrights, actors and writers were brought together with the couple at its centre. In 1968 he published James Joyce Remembered, his graceful, occasionally witty reminiscences, which conveyed his friend's character. This was followed in 1970 by the memoir Under the Receding Wave. Curran died in 1972. In his obituary of him, H. Bodkin noted: “By a happy providence his life coincided exactly with the dawn, high noon and the sunset of what has come to be called the Irish Renaissance.”