Oliver St. John Gogarty

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Olympic medal record
Art competitions
Bronze 1924 Paris Literature

Oliver Joseph St John Gogarty (August 17, 1878 - September 22, 1957) was an Irish physician and ear surgeon, who was also a poet and writer, one of the most prominent Dublin wits and even a football player for Bohemian F.C.. He is perhaps now best known as the inspiration for Buck Mulligan in James Joyce's novel Ulysses.

Contents

[edit] Life

Born at 5 Rutland (now Parnell Square) in Dublin, Gogarty attended Clongowes Wood College and Trinity College Dublin.

Gogarty wrote humorous verse and stories and belonged to the latter period of the Irish Literary Revival. His verse was admired by W. B. Yeats who included more poems by Gogarty than any other poet in his Oxford Book of English Verse. He was a highly-visible figure in Dublin literary society, and was friendly with, for example, George William Russell and Lord Dunsany.

Gogarty had a strained relationship with Joyce that ended when Joyce left Ireland; Gogarty claimed a gun was involved.[citation needed] One of his best-known verses, The Ballad of Japing Jesus, was quoted in the first chapter of Ulysses as the Ballad of Joking Jesus.

In 1924, Gogarty won the bronze medal at the Olympic Games for his poem Ode to the Tailteann Games.

Gogarty's 1937 memoir, As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, resulted in a libel lawsuit. Henry Sinclair, an uncle of Samuel Beckett's, claimed that Gogarty characterized his grandfather, Morris Harris, as a usurer. The trial received a fair amount of public attention at the time, and the as-yet-unknown Beckett filed one of two affidavits on behalf of his uncle's lawsuit and played a key role in the trial proper, which Gogarty ultimately lost.

[edit] Politics

Gogarty's home was a safe-house during the Irish War of Independence for various prison escapees (including Linda Kearns). Gogarty would be a political figure of the Irish Free State for a period of time. Gogarty recovered his own hall door key from the body of Michael Collins while he performed an autopsy on his former friend.

[edit] Later life, and death

Gogarty moved to the USA for the latter period of his life, and died in New York City, aged 79.

[edit] Legacy

A pub in the Temple Bar, Dublin district of Dublin is named after him.

[edit] Books

  • An Offering of Swans (1923)
  • Wild Apples (1928)
  • As I Was Going down Sackville Street (1937)
  • Others to Adorn (1938)
  • I Follow St Patrick (1938)
  • Intimations (1950)
  • It Isn't This Time of Year at All! (1954)
  • Tumbling in the Hay
  • Collected Poems (1954)
  • A Week End in the Middle of the Week (1958)
  • Oliver St. John Gogarty (1963), is a biography by Ulick O'Connor

[edit] External links

[edit] Source

  • Knowlson, James; Beckett, Samuel (1996). Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. London: Bloomsbury.