Even after Joyce’s death, Ulysses sometimes led to lawsuits. In 1954, for example, the BBC was sued for broadcasting a radio dramatization of the “Hades” chapter.
An Old Family Feud
Ulysses is set on June 16, 1904 – a day that has since come to be called Bloomsday. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Bloomsday in 1954, Radio BBC 3 broadcast the radio play “Paddy Dignam’s Funeral (The ‘Hades’ Episode).” Shortly thereafter, the BBC received a letter of complaint from Reuben J. Dodd, Jr., a resident of Dublin.
The Joyces and had fallen out with the Dodds in the 1890s, when the father of the family, John Stanislaus Joyce, was unable to repay a loan and therefore had to relinquish to Dodd, Sr., his properties in the city of Cork. James Joyce avenged his father in characteristic fashion: In Ulysses, a character named Reuben J. Dodd is decried as an avaricious moneylender.
Which Law Applies Where?
Joyce was well aware that his negative portrayals of real-life personalities had made him many enemies in Ireland. It is in fact quite possible that Joyce refrained from returning to his home country after 1919 because he was worried that he would be sued for libel.
The case of the 1954 BBC radio play shows that such fears were not unfounded. Initially, the broadcaster’s lawyers argued that a defamation case could not be admitted in Ireland because the ‘place of publication’ was London. In addition, the legal team claimed that it was not even possible to receive BBC broadcasts in Dublin with any degree of reliability – which, however, was not in fact accurate.
After lengthy proceedings, the BBC’s lawyers realized that they would lose a jury trial in Ireland. The BBC therefore opted for settling the dispute by agreeing to pay Reuben J. Dodd, Jr. £650. On November 28, 1956, the broadcaster also apologized publicly. The episode meant belated compensation for the Dodd family, added another chapter to the legal history of Ulysses, and hopefully constitutes a suitable coda for the exhibition “James Joyce, Ulysses, and the Law.”
Table of Contents
- James Joyce, Ulysses, and the Law: An Introduction
- Obscenity and Literature: Legal Context around 1915
- James, Nora, and the “Konkubinatsverbot”
- Adultery as a Crime of Property
- Doubt as a Virtue
- Joyce Files a Lawsuit in Zurich
- Dying Without a Safety Net
- Ulysses Outlawed in the U.S.
- A Victory for Free Speech
- Suicide as a Crime
- A Difficult Return: Stricter Migration Laws
- A Defamation Case Against the BBC
Sources: Callan, Patrick. Ruben J. Dodd’s ‘Malicious Falsehood’: Ulysses on the BBC (1954–1955).” Dublin James Joyce Journal, no. 11–13, 2018–2020, pp. 1–26. | Latham, Sean. “The Novel at the Bar: Joyce, Lewis, and Libel.” The Art of Scandal: Modernism, Libel Law, and the Roman à Clef, OUP, 2009, pp. 89–123.
