Kathleen Griffin

Youngest sister of JJ's wife Nora Barnacle and closest to the Joyces. Kathleen (née Catherine) was born, like Nora, in Galway city workhouse. She attended the Convent of Mercy, and worked as a bookbinder and paper-packer. Beautiful, but with a stormy temperament, she had a disastrous affair with a married man and in 1937 (aged forty-two) married John Griffin, then a stevedore, of Middle Street, Galway. She apparently dressed as if pregnant and then ("the laughing stock of Galway") left with her husband for London, where he followed the family trade of French-polisher. She died there in 1963. John Simpson