J. C. Doyle
J. C. Doyle
In Brief
In Calypso Molly tells her husband that she will be
performing Là ci darem la
mano with baritone "J. C. Doyle." Later, in Hades,
Bloom says that "we'll have all topnobbers. J. C. Doyle and
John MacCormack I hope and. The best, in fact." Today Doyle is
not half so well known as the famous tenor John McCormack, but
in his day he ranked among the most highly regarded Irish
musicians, and he helped promote the younger man's career when
McCormack was starting out. By putting these two formidable
singers on a stage with Molly, Joyce was recreating a glorious
moment from his own past in August 1904.
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John C. Doyle was born in Dublin in 1866, the same year as
the fictional Leopold Bloom. Gifford notes that he "won the
award at the 1899 Feis Ceoil," an annual Dublin music festival
established in 1897 that is still held today. Vivien Igoe
records that Doyle made a career in the Telegraphs Office of
the General Post Office, avoiding the risks of a full-time
singing career in order to support a wife and eight children.
But he "sang at concerts, soirées, and salons in Dublin and
other parts of the country, and also performed in England and
Scotland. With his fine voice and his matinée-idol good looks,
Pathé described him as 'the darling of the Irish concert
platform'." Slote notes that he also sang at the Carmelite
Church on Whitefriars Street from 1901 until his retirement in
1936.
On 22 August 1904 Joyce invited Nora to hear him sing at an
afternoon concert. Then, Ellmann observes, "he was invited to
share the platform at the Antient Concert Rooms with
John McCormack and J. C. Doyle on August 27, the last night of
the Horse Show Week. It was the high point of his musical
career." One reviewer described the concert's disastrously
poor organization, which gave Joyce material for "A Mother":
when his accompanist left early (as Kathleen Kearney does in
the Dubliners story) and her replacement proved
incompetent, "one of the vocalists, Mr. James A. Joyce, had to
sit down at the piano and accompany himself in the song In
Her Simplicity, after she had made several unsuccessful
attempts to strum out The
Croppy Boy, the item programmed over the singer's
name....Mr. Joyce possesses a light tenor voice, which he is
inclined to force on the high notes but sings with artistic
emotionalism" (168).
A review in the Freeman's
Journal, also quoted in Ellmann's biography, gave
a less mixed impression of the event, noting that "Mr. J. C.
Doyle sang a number of songs in first-rate style....Mr. James
A. Joyce, the possessor of a sweet tenor voice, sang
charmingly The Sally Gardens, and gave a pathetic
rendering of The Croppy Boy....Mr. J. F. M'Cormack was
the hero of the evening. It was announced as his last public
appearance in Ireland, and the evident feeling of the audience
at the parting seemed to unnerve him a good deal" (168n). Nora
was greatly impressed with her lover, and would tell people
for years that "Jim should have stuck to music instead of
bothering with writing" (169). Instead, he transferred his
triumph to Molly, giving readers a high impression of the
quality of her singing by associating her with Doyle and
McCormack.
Thanks to Vincent Altman O'Connor for uploading to Youtube
the recording of Doyle's singing posted here.
