Lucia Joyce would have been 91 yesterday. James Joyce's only much-loved daughter was born on July 26th, 1907 and died on December 12th, 1982 aged 75, having spent the previous 47 years in a psychiatric hospital.
Much of her life before that was taken up with periods in clinics throughout Europe, as Joyce remained in denial about her schizophrenia. It was a mental disease he later described as "the most elusive illness known to man and unknown to medicine".
At one stage he brought Lucia to see the psychologist Carl Jung, even though he had "written negatively" about Ulysses, as Dr Anthony Clare put it yesterday. But Joyce was desperate. Jung was Lucia's 20th doctor.
Joyce believed that of his two children (his son Giorgio was the eldest) Lucia was the more creative and more like himself. Jung concluded father and daughter were like two people going to the bottom of the sea, "one falling, one diving".
As Dr Clare said, Lucia was "no genius like her father, she was a victim of disease". But there was between the two "a mystical union", he said, with Joyce "the one man who had loved her with a helpless passion".
Lucia developed a deep attachment to another Irishman. Dr Clare described it as "a fierce passion". Its object was Samuel Beckett, who was a year older than her. In 1930 he was among the first to note (in a letter) that she was disintegrating. Her schizophrenia was diagnosed for the first time in 1932. The treatment was institutionalisation. She entered St Andrew's private psychiatric hospital in Northampton for the final time after the war, having previously been in other institutions.
The turbulent experience of the Joyces with Lucia was described by Dr Clare yesterday as "a little cameo of families all over Ireland experiencing this disorder".
Dr Clare, medical director of St Patrick's Hospital in Dublin, was speaking at the unveiling of Schizophrenia Ireland's "Lucia Awareness" pack and leaflet in the James Joyce Centre, Dublin, yesterday.
He was introduced by Schizophrenia Ireland's president, Ms Mairead O'Sullivan, who said the group hoped to reach the 175,000 sufferers and carers affected by the disease in Ireland. (It is estimated that over 35,000 Irish people have developed the disorder.) They also hope to correct the widespread misinformation and stigma associated with the disease.
Just one person in 100 is likely to develop schizophrenia, which does not mean having a split personality. Its onset generally takes place between 16 and 24.
The cause is unknown and, though it is not hereditary, there appears to be a genetic predisposition. People with the disease are unlikely to be violent, being more likely to be victims of abuse.
The disease can be treated nowadays with medication and rehabilitation programmes. In the main about a quarter of those who suffer it make a complete recovery, while 65 per cent alternate between remission and relapse. About 10 per cent never recover.
Symptoms include paranoia, confusion, believing that what is imaginary is real, emotional apathy, lethargy, withdrawal, fatigue, sleeplessness, and seeing profound significance in what may be trivial. Some victims may come to believe they are God or a well-known individual.
"Lucia Day", July 26th, has been so deemed by Schizophrenia Ireland and adopted by it as its national schizophrenia awareness day. People seeking further information on the disease can contact Schizophrenia Ireland's helpline at 1890-621 631, or its offices at (01) 860 1620.
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