John Joyce (1875-1957)

Joyce in Ireland

John Joyce was born to John Joyce Snr and Mary Cottingham in Kylemore, Killannin on 22 August 1875 and baptised a week later in Killannin church.  When Joyce was just 11 years of age, his mother sadly passed away after she had been debilitated for the previous five years.

His father John lived on in the family homestead in Kylemore until his death in 1909 and the last of the immediate family to reside there was his brother William who died in 1956.

There are aspects of Joyce’s early life where we know facts, but currently haven’t the providence to explain the background – for example we know in 1899 Joyce won the junior and senior championships of the Cross-Country Association of Ireland, leading the Ballinasloe Harriers to first team home on both occasions, but we don’t know how he became involved with the east Galway Ballinasloe Harriers.  Also Joyce had been residing in Dublin prior to his emigration, we can just surmise that this was most likely work related.

Together with Tom Hamilton and Jim Carter, Joyce started the Galway Harriers in 1899.  Between that year and the next, Joyce held all the long distance records in Ireland.  His final big win in Ireland before emigrating was the Irish Amateur Athletics Association one-mile steeplechase championship.

Emigration

Aged 25, a single labourer, able to read and write, and with $10 in his pocket, Joyce boarded the SS Etruria in Queenstown (Cobh) on April Fool’s Day 1900, bound for the port of New York.  His destination address on the ship’s manifest was given as that of his sister, Mrs Murphy in Wortendyke, New Jersey.  Joyce’s brother Thomas had also emigrated to USA some years earlier and went on to also marry a Murphy – Elizabeth – in 1909.

Joyce in USA

Joyce literally ‘hit the ground running’ when he arrived in America – within months newspapers are recording his athletic ability, and in early 1901 while with Xavier Athletic Association he was the individual winner by 400 yds in the Annual Metropolitan Team Championships in Long Island.

By 1902 he was a member of Pastime Athletic Club, and at the National Amateur Athletic Union Championship that year, got home away ahead of his field, winning the Junior 5 Mile race.

He went on to win the American cross-country championship in 1903, and then the American indoor 10-miles titles in 1903, 1904 and 1905.

Joyce’s personal best came in 1904 when competing with the Irish-American Athletic Club, he won the American 5-mile title, running the 5 miles in 28 minutes 25.2 seconds.  That same year he represented the United States in the 800m at the Olympic Games in St Louis.  He lined up with 12 other men from 3 countries, with most of America’s top middle-distance men present.  This was probably the top race of the 1904 Olympics, as several runners were so badly spent they were carried from the track in exhaustion. Whilst his fellow United States team members took all the podium places, Joyce himself finished outside medal position.

In May 1905 Joyce won the 3-mile scratch race at the Irish American Athletic Club annual games in Celtic Park New York.  The New York Daily News reported that just a few weeks later over 18,000 Irishmen attended the games of the Galway Mens’ Association at that same venue to witness the great race between Joyce the American Champion, and his old school comrade from home, Tom Hynes the Irish Champion. The reporter gives us a great image of Joyce when he describes him as walking onto the track as unconcerned as if he was buying an apple, standing at 5 feet 8 and a quarter inches in height, his limbs from the knee down would fascinate a student of anatomy with veins as distinct as the fibrous tracing on oak leaves. It was to be Joyce’s day, although Hynes had a longer stride, Joyce was a better finisher, winning the race by just 18 inches!

Within a month of this event, Joyce and Hynes had landed themselves in hot water and were disciplined by the registration committee of the Amateur Athletic Association, one charge being that they agreed to appear at games in the Metropolitan Association, allowed it to be announced, then left and competed in Boston.  Both received suspensions for a time.

Joyce’s running career continued and in 1907 he was on the Irish-American Athletic Club team who won the Amateur Athletic Union Cross Country.

Joyce married Delia Kyne of Headford, Galway in 1912 in New York and they went on to have five sons and a daughter.

Although he had been a bricklayer by trade, he went on to own a saloon/cafe in New Rochelle, New York.

In September 1918, Joyce appears to have completed a military registration card but to date we haven’t found that his military career went any further than that.

He eventually in the 1930s moved to a farm in Montgomery, New York, where he lived for the remainder of his life until his death on 17 May 1957.

We will shortly add here copies of newspapers covering Joyce’s running achievements