1n6xZiV

2 8 6 J A M E S [ 1909 1number of other journalists, to whom he represented himself as havingbeen sent to Dublin by the Piccolo for the purpose of attending Shaw'splay. He then hastily wrote his article and sent it the same night to Stanislaus,asking him to check it before giving it to Prezioso.The next day he took a train with Giorgio to Galway. Not sure of hiswelcome, he sent Giorgio into the house ahead of him; 38but the Barnacleswere very glad to see both. Nora's uncle, Michael Healy, a Galwayport official, put them up in his house in Dominick Street. Thewell-mannered son-in-law with the thin moustache had no difficulty inpleasing them, and Giorgio entertained his relatives by his persistence inrunning after the ducks on the road. 39Joyce went to the house in AugustineStreet where Nora had lived with her grandmother, and, so thathe might see the room she had slept in, pretended to consider buying theproperty. He took care also to see Lynch's Memorial, which commemoratednot only the mayor who hanged his own son, but, in Joyce's mind,Cosgrave, now more 'Lynch' than ever. Sometimes he walked on thestrand with Nora's sister Kathleen, 'taking lessons from the sea,' as shesaid. 40Most of the weekend, however, he sat in the kitchen at 4 BowlingGreen with Mrs. Barnacle and talked of Nora. He got her to sing 'TheLass of Aughrim,' including some of the verses that Nora did not remember.The last stanzas, in which Lord Gregory asks the lass to prove heridentity, Mrs. Barnacle, affected by the tragedy, was reluctant to sing:If you'll be the lass of AughrimAs I am taking you mean to beTell me the first tokenThat passed between you and me.O don't you rememberThat night on yon lean hillWhen we both met togetherWhich I am sorry now to tell.The rain falls on my yellow locksAnd the dew it wets my skin;My babe lies cold within my arms;Lord Gregory, let me in.*Joyce found his mother-in-law very like Nora, and wrote Nora to say thatperhaps next year they might return to Galway together: 'You will takeme from place to place and the image of your girlhood will purify againmy life.' 41He felt so lonesome for Nora that he gave vent to frequentsighs, and Mrs. Barnacle, not without admiration, warned him he 'wouldbreak his heart by it.' 42His letters veered between blunt sexual excitation* Lord Gregory refuses and the lass drowns herself. Donagh MacDonagh discovered that'The Lass of Aughrim' was a variant of'The Lass of Rock Royal,' No. 76 in F. J. Child,English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-98), II, 224.