Oliver St. John Gogarty
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Oliver St John Gogarty (August 17, 1878-September 22, 1957) was an Irish physician and surgeon, who was also a poet and writer, one of the most prominent Dublin wits, and for some time a political figure of the Irish Free State. He is perhaps now best known as the inspiration for Buck Mulligan in James Joyce's novel Ulysses.
Born in Dublin, Gogarty was a medical student and joker who wrote humorous verse and stories. His verse was admired by W. B. Yeats. He had a strained relationship with Joyce that ended when Joyce left Ireland; Gogarty claimed a gun was involved. One of his best known bits of doggerel, The Ballad of Jumping Jesus, was quoted in the first chapter of Ulysses.
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.
In later life, he moved widely in British society, and the USA. He died in New York City.
Books
- As I Was Going down Sackville Street (1937)
- 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
External link
Robot Wisdom's Joyce Page (http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/ulysses/gogarty.html)