Clodagh Finn: Of all Joyce’s women, it is Lucia and her genius that need to be reclaimed

It’s late in the day, but the slow rehabilitation of Lucia Joyce, the brilliant dancer, is well underway, writes Clodagh Finn 

Lucia Joyce.

How celebratory to see Edna O’Brien assemble the women in James Joyce’s life on the Abbey stage to mark the centenary of the publication of Ulysses. However, another important Joycean anniversary also falls this year, even if it is still a little below the radar.

On December 12, it will be 40 years since the death of Joyce’s daughter, Lucia, in Northampton, England. If one detail sums up her lonely later years, it is this: the only flower on her coffin was a single white rose sent from Dublin by Joycean scholar, Senator David Norris.