"Mind you, they've a great feeling for the Irish there"

In a departure from tradition, where Irish art has been exhibited and sold at its London premises, Sothebys hosted its Irish art auction in Paris last week. (A rare positive spin-off from Brexit.) Spanning almost 150 years, from Lavery to Maser, and including works on loan from private collections, this marked the first time for at least three years that the French public has had free access in one place to such a rich cross section of 20th century and contemporary Irish art.??

So much Irish art made in the last 100 years is world class. What struck me, however, is how much was made in France. ?Among those exhibited, Nathaniel Hone, Mainie Jellett, Roderic O’Connor, William Leech, John Lavery and Evie Hone trained, were inspired or practiced in France – often all three. ??An ongoing connection was reflected in the presence of three of our finest contemporary artists – Rowan Gillespie, John Kelly and Maser.

What brought – and still brings – so may Irish artists here???Joyce’s words on Paris, spoken by Ignatius Gallagher in “A Little Cloud” might have reflected his own experience, arriving in 1902 and again in 1922:?“Everything in Paris is gay….they believe in enjoying life – and don’t you think they’re right??If you want to enjoy yourself properly you must go to Paris. And, mind you, they’ve a great feeling for the Irish there. When they heard I was from Ireland they were ready to eat me, man.”

France is threaded through the very fabric of Irish life, our political thought as well as our creative inspiration.?Those who preceded Joyce – Wolfe Tone, James Stephens, Maud Gonne, George Moore, William Butler Yeats, Oscar Wilde, Eileen Gray ?– and those who followed -?Samuel Beckett, Michael Farrell, Derek Mahon, John Montague, Mícéal O’Rourke and Barry Douglas.

Joyce came to Paris almost by accident, arriving for two weeks and staying for 20 years.?Oscar Wilde was a refugee from the mores of Victorian England when he landed in Dieppe 125 years ago this summer.?If we seem to be stumbling across anniversaries, that is because the fabric is so rich and dense.

Each in their turn gave something back to France.?Beckett wrote some his finest work in French.?Nobody, except perhaps Nabokov, has more successfully embraced a second language and made it fresh. ??Sometimes I visit him in Montparnasse cemetery. I love how he is honoured in the 14th arrondissement.?Last Sunday, his grave was decorated with an acorn, a bird’s feather, a rounded pebble and (my favourite) a dying daisy. ?When I think of him, I think of John Minihan’s image of him, shown at Sotheby’s, seated just around the corner from his grave at the Café Fran?ais on the Boulevard St Jacques.?

Joyce had 18 different homes in Paris over his 20 years here.?Wherever I go, I can imagine him standing at a street corner “at a slight angle to the universe” as EM Forster wrote of Constantine Cavafy.?It’s a stance wonderfully captured in Rowan Gillespie’s sculpture at the exhibition.

Recently I have been reading Joyce’s correspondence with my predecessors in Paris.?He had a complicated relationship with the Irish state (to say the least) but a healthy transactional relationship with its ambassadors. ?So I was struck by the copy of Dubliners on display, inscribed to the Irish ambassador in London, John Dulanty.?It is dated 17 July shortly after he and Nora married in London.?What is going on here, I wondered??Joyce and Dulanty had one thing in common.?Both were tireless admirers of the Irish tenor, John Sullivan and tried to get him onto the stage at Covent Garden.?Did that book help seal their alliance??If so, it was one of those very rare moments where a servant of the state put their weight behind James Joyce….

The history of the Irish in France, then as now, is one of displacement and inspiration.?We generally encounter it in isolated snapshots. It is only when different strands are brought together in one place that the full shape of this relationship begins to emerge – surprising, meandering, endlessly renewing and occasionally epic.??