GENETIC JOYCE STUDIES – Issue 21 (Spring 2021) Source Emendations in Gem Thief, Notebook VI.B.1: Topography of Ireland and Handbook of the Ulster Question Viviana-Mirela Braslasu and Geert Lernout Gerard of Wales or Giraldus Cambrensis was a Welsh-Norman priest, clerk of Henry II and writer of scholarly works. As a relative of some of the Normans who had invaded Ireland a generation earlier he visited the island on a number of occasions and he wrote an account of the Norman invasion, preceded by what he called a Topographia, a description of Ireland and the Irish, which he considered a barbarous people, which in itself justified the Norman invasion. This is the first book about Ireland by a non-resident and as Joep Leerssen has demonstrated, it stands at the beginning of a long tradition of negative images of the Irish. Joyce refers to Cambrensis in A Portrait when Temple tells young Dedalus that his family is mentioned by Geraldus and in Ulysses when the Citizen claims that Cambrensis described the sophistication and wealth of the nation, especially its exports among which he includes wine, whereas Cambrensis explicitly says that contrary to what the Venerable Bede claimed, there are no vineyards in Ireland. It is clear that the material Joyce borrows from Cambrensis is the most fantastic and silly bits, such as that there are no mice, no earthquakes and ospreys that have a talon and a webbed foot. The second book was a very recent production, part of the Free State’s campaign over the lost province and its cultural, social and political role in a united Ireland. This was a particularly relevant when the young Irish Free State was trying to establish its relationship with its northern neighbour which republicans saw as part of the country and it has puzzled both insiders and outsiders ever since. We know that Joyce was following the discussion closely because in 1924 he wrote to Miss Weaver about the stamps of the Irish Free State that included a drawing of the whole island, that it was a philatelic curiosity because it included the territory of another state (Letters I, 213). The handbook, published by the Stationery Office in Dublin (no longer His Majesty’s), first gives a history of Ireland as a unified nation and then it argues for the inclusion of the Northern counties in the new state, writing that no state in existence had uniformity of race, religion, character and ideals: “A nation is the reconciliation of differences, not the assertion of uniformity.” A short review in the November 1923 issue of Journal of the British Institute of International Affairs found it a useful one, “containing as it does a brief historical epitome, , full statistical tables with economic and geographic information, and several useful maps.” At least in his note-taking, Joyce seems to have concentrated on the historical survey, with relatively few notes from the more polemical final sections. The authors wish to thank Dipanjan Maitra for his help in obtaining an electronic copy of the Handbook. References 1. Wright, Thomas. Ed. The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis. (incl. Topography of Ireland) London: George Bell & Sons, 1905. Online at: https://archive.org/details/historicalworkso00giraiala 1 2. Handbook of the Ulster Question. Issued by the North Eastern Boundary Bureau, Dublin: Stationery Office, 1923. Topography of Ireland 2 VI.B.1.038 (a) Aran no mice — die / no corruption The Topography of Ireland 64: CHAPTER. VI. OF AN ISLAND WHERE HUMAN CORPSES EXPOSED TO THE ATMOSPHERE DO NOT SUFFER DECAY. THERE is an island called Aren,1 situated in the western part of Connaught, and consecrated, as it is said, to St. Brendan, where human corpses are neither buried nor decay, but, deposited in the open air, remain uncorrupted. Here men can behold, and recognise with wonder, grandfathers, great- grandfathers, and great-great-grandfathers, and the long series of their ancestors to a remote period of past time. There is another thing remarkable in this island. Although mice2 swarm in vast numbers in other parts of Ireland, here not a single one is found. No mouse is bred here, nor does it live if it be introduced; when brought over, it runs immediately away and leaps into the sea. If it be stopped, it instantly dies. 64n1: These legends belong to an island called Inisgluair, off the coast of Erris, co. Mayo, which was sacred to St. Brandan, and which Giraldus seems to have confounded with Aran. According to the legend, the latter island was visited by St. Brandan when he set out on his grand voyage. St. Bean is supposed to be the saint of that name commemorated in the Romish calendar on the 16th of December. 64n2: Giraldus uses the word mures, but some of the Irish antiquaries believe that by this word he meant the small black rat which abounds in Ireland. (b) Iverna / Iene ^+Ierna+^ / Erú Earú land / Irlandia / Ireland Note: Ireland. The English name has been derived inter alia, from Iverni, an Irish tribe mentioned by Ptolemy, and its variant hibernicised forms, including ‘Eriu’; Ierne, its Latin name, from which ‘Erin’ has also been derived. See also 039(l). (c) Suir / Nore / & Barrow } sisters The Topography of Ireland 23: Three noble rivers, then, rise at the foot of the Blandine mountain:7 they are called The Three Sisters, because they received their names from three sisters. These are the Beriia, which runs through Leighlin,8 the Eyrus, which runs through Ossory,9 and the Suyrus, which, after running through Archfinia and Tribarccia, falls into the sea at Waterford.10 23n7: Sliabh Bladhwa, or Slieve Bloom, an extensive mountain range; stretching across the King’s and Queen’s counties. The Three Sisters were the Barrow, Nore, and Suir.[…] 23n8: The Barrow, which rises in the north of Queen’s County, and empties itself into the bay of Waterford. 23n9: The Nore is a tributary of the Barrow. 23n10: The Suir rises in Tipperary, and flows into Waterford harbour. (d) rBrendan’s sea The Topography of Ireland 24n3: The Shannon, called in Irish, Sinain. It is not easy to account for the singular error into which Giraldus has fallen with regard to the course of this celebrated river. He seems to have imagined that it was a branch of the river Shannon which discharges itself into the sea at Ballyshannon, in the bay of Donegal. The Shannon, as is well known, takes its rise in Lough Allen, in the county of Leitrim, and takes first a southern and then a south-western course, till it discharges itself into the Atlantic, which was sometimes called St. Brandan’s sea, because it was the supposed scene of his marvellous voyages. (e) no earthquake > (f) thunder 1 a year The Topography of Ireland 55: CHAPTER. XVII. OF THE SINGULARLY TEMPERATE CHARACTER OF OUR CLIMATE; AND THAT WE ARE HAPPILY FREE FROM MANY DISADVANTAGES. Many other things are wanting here much to our advantage, such as vermin. Here there are no earthquakes, you scarcely hear thunder once in a year; thunder-claps do not terrify, nor flashes of lightning strike. Here are no cataracts to overwhelm, no earthquake to swallow you up; no lions to carry you off, no panthers to mangle you, no bears to devour you, no tigers to destroy you. Moreover, no suspicion of poison makes you recoil from food, even offered by an enemy. No stepson fears the poison cup of his mother-in-law, no matron that of a jealous mistress. 3 (g) fat deer / younger horns The Topography of Ireland 43: CHAPTER. XIX. OF WILD ANIMALS, AND THEIR NATURES. THIS island contains nearly all the species of wild animals which are bred in the western countries. It produces stags so fat that they lose their speed, and the more slender they are in shape, the more nobly they carry their heads and branching antlers. VI.B.1.039 (a) cranes The Topography of Ireland 34-5: CHAPTER. X. OF THE CRANE, AND ITS NATURE. CRANES assemble in such numbers, that a hundred, or about that number, are often seen in one flock. By natural in-[34]stinct they keep watch in turns at night for their common safety, perched on one foot, and holding a stone in the other featherless claw, that if they should fall asleep, the fall of the stone may rouse them to renew their watch. (b) fish cannot be [translaked] The Topography of Ireland 26: In Meath, near Fovera, are three lakes, not far from each other, each of which has its own distinct and peculiar species of fish, and which are frequented by no other, although they are connected by streams affording communications between them; and if a fish of one kind is carried down into the water frequented by another, it either perishes or finds its way back to its first abode. (c) admirably unnatural / manner The Topography of Ireland 70-1: CHAPTER. IX. OF A GREAT LAKE WHICH ORIGINATED IN A REMARKABLE MANNER. THERE is a lake in Ulster of vast size, being thirty miles long and fifteen broad,1 from which a very beautiful river, called the Banna, flows into the Northern ocean. The fishermen in this lake make more frequent complaints of the quantity of fish inclosed in their nets and breaking them than of the want of fish. In our time a fish was caught here which had not come up from the sea, but was taken [70] descending the lake, and was in shape very like a salmon, but it was so large that it could neither be dragged out or conveyed whole, and therefore was carried through the province cut in pieces.