Martin Lyons and Julia Flynn
Martin Lyons
Martin Lyons was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1816.
Julia Clare Flynn
Julia Clare Flynn was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1829. Her father was Patrick Flynn who ran a spirit store and starching and blueing business at 53 Back Lane, Dublin, and her mother was Mary Fitzsimons.
Aunt Julia
Her sister Margaretta Teresa married John Murray and they were the maternal grandparents of the author James Joyce. So Julia was the great aunt to Joyce.
There are numerous references to “Aunt Julia” in Joyce’s work.
The Misses Flynn
It is recorded that Patrick Flynn arranged for all his daughters to have singing and piano lessons. There are numerous examples of performances in Dublin by “The Misses Flynn”.
But which of the Flynn sisters constituted the Misses Flynn when they were on stage, or did different permutations of the sisters appear under this name? Similarly, is it possible to identify which Flynn sisters appear in “The Sisters” (where they are named “Eliza” and “Nannie”), and in “The Dead” (where the Misses Flynn are Kate and Julia Morkan), or do these characters include features of several of the sisters?
There are five possible candidates for the Misses Flynn, the five Flynn sisters born between 1829 and 1835: Julia Clare, Ellen, Elizabeth Josephine, Margaret Theresa, and Anne. In 1856 their ages ranged from 21 to 27.
Martin and Julia
Julia Clare Flynn, Joyce’s great aunt Julia, was born in or about 1829. She was the seventh of 13 children of Patrick Flynn. At the time that the Misses Flynn were first singing in public, Julia Flynn and her husband Martin Lyons, a commercial traveller, were having their first child, Frederick Martin:
September 3, at 5, Graham Terrace, Seville Place, the wife of Martin Lyons, Esq, of a son. Freeman’s Journal (1856), 5 September
Frederick was followed by James Joseph, Margaretta, and Martin, and maybe others, as the years passed before their father’s untimely death aged 55 in February 1871:
Lyons – At his residence, 113 Lower Gardiner Street, after a protracted illness, Mr. Martin Lyons. His remains will be removed to Glasnevin Cemetery at 10 o’clock on Sunday morning. R.I.P. Freeman’s Journal (1871), 3 February
Although Joyce uses her name as one of the two musical aunts in “The Dead”, Julia Flynn does not seem, from the available evidence, to have been involved in the singing appearances of the Misses Flynn..
School for Musicians
In “The Dead” the Aunts Kate and Julia are known for their musical abilities:
Julia, though she was quite grey, was still the leading soprano in Adam and Eve’s, and Kate, being too feeble to go about much, gave music lessons to beginners on the old square piano in the back room.
Their father Patrick moved to No 16 Ellis Quay in Dublin after his business collapsed in the 1850s. Thom’s Directory shows him there with at least two of his daughters, the Misses Flynn, in 1862:
16 [Ellis quay] Flynn, Patrick, starch and blue manufactory, and com. Agent, 22l. Flynn, The Misses, teachers of the pianoforte and singing. Thom’s Directory of Ireland (1862)
These listings continue for many years in Thom’s. At this time Julia Lyons was living elsewhere in Dublin with her families, and it seems reasonable to assume that she was not then involved with the musical tuition.
Later Life
Julia’s husband Martin died on 2 February 1871 at 113 Lower Gardiner Street. At some point Aunt Julia moved into 16 Ellis Quay too; she was certainly living with her sisters in her declining years. But she did not move there immediately, as in 1878 she is still living at 113 Lower Gardiner Street:
Police Intelligence – Saturday. Northern Division… Mrs. Julia Lyons, 113 Lower Gardiner-street, deposed that the defendant delivered a pair of boots at her residence. She had ordered the boots at Mr. Hutchinson’s [84 Great Britain-street], and she gave defendant £1 in payment. Freeman’s Journal (1878), 16 December
The family is still there the next year, too:
Larceny. Mary Anna Keogh was indicted that she, on the 28th December, did steal from Frederick Lyons’ 113 Lower Gardiner street, a purse containing about £3 13s. Mr Lyons was passing through Gardiner street when the prisoner jostled him, and he immediately found that he had lost his purse. Irish Times (1879), 15 January
But in 1880 they are in Ellis Quay, though Aunt Julia’s son Frederick Lyons is causing the family some distress:
The Abercorn Hall Meetings. In the Southern [Dublin] Police Court yesterday, before Mr. Woodlock, four well-dressed young men who gave the names and addresses of Henry Gorman, aged 21, clerk, 81 Leinster-road; Edward Murphy, alias Frederick Lyons, no business, 16 Ellis’s-quay; Michael Maloney, alias Cornelius M’Donnell, clerk, 27 Westland-row; Thomas Lee, alias Casey, medical student, 20 Curzon-street; were charged with having wilfully created a disturbance at a religious meeting in the Hall, Harcourt-road, [etc.]. Freeman’s Journal (1880), 23 November
Their sister Margaret Theresa, who married John Murray, did not live at Ellis Quay. She died in 1881 at home at 7 Upper Clanbrassil Street.