THIS PHOTOGRAPH WAS taken exactly 75 years ago on Bloomsday in 1949, in Trieste, Italy, by my grandfather John McAfee. My grandad was an amazing records keeper and an avid photographer when it came to documenting his work and travels throughout his life, and just as well he was because this photo is a little bit of a gem.

I don’t profess myself to be in any way all that knowledgeable about the Joyce family, but finding this photo in one of several albums that my grandad had given to my Dad led me to try and find out a bit more about it. Namely who exactly are the people in the photograph, and how on earth did my grandad end up in Trieste, befriending the Joyces?

In the photo are the younger brother of James Joyce, Stanislaus; a Sir William John Sullivan who was a British diplomat and political advisor in Trieste between 1945-1950, and Mrs. Livia Italo Svevo, wife of Italo Svevo, a former pupil and good friend of Joyce.

(John) Stanislaus Joyce was born in Dublin in 1884 and passed away in Trieste six years after this photo was taken, in 1955. Again, not knowing much about the Joyces, I would wonder why Stanislaus left Ireland for Trieste in the first place. It is well documented that he was agnostic and not a fan of organised religion, as well as a radical liberal, and struggled in the political and religious climate of Ireland that was viewed by him as restrictive and stifling and not encouraging of creativity.

Eager to leave all this behind, Stanislaus joined his brother in Trieste in October 1905 where he got a job teaching English at the Berlitz Language School. James Joyce had moved to Trieste in 1904, and left Ireland for similar reasons to Stanislaus, feeling oppression from societal norms and values that were also seen as a barrier........

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