William Joyce - Early Life

Early Life

Joyce was born on Herkimer Street in Brooklyn, New York, to a Protestant mother and an Irish Catholic father who had taken United States citizenship. A few years after his birth, the family returned to Galway, Ireland. Joyce attended the Jesuit St Ignatius College in Galway from 1915 to 1921. Unusual for Irish Roman Catholics, both Joyce and his father were strongly Unionist. Joyce later said that he had aided the Black and Tans during the Irish War for Independence and had become a target of the Irish Republican Army.

Following what he alleged to be an assassination attempt in 1921 (which supposedly failed because he took a different route home from school), he left for England where he briefly attended King's College School, Wimbledon, on a foreign exchange. His family followed him to England two years later. Joyce had relatives in Birkenhead, whom he visited on a few occasions. He joined the Royal Worcester Regiment in 1921 but was discharged when it was discovered that he had lied about his age. He then applied to Birkbeck College of the University of London and to enter the Officer Training Corps. At Birkbeck, he worked hard and obtained a First Class degree. He also developed an interest in fascism, and he worked with (but never joined) the British Fascisti of Rotha Lintorn-Orman.

In 1924, while stewarding a Conservative Party meeting, Joyce was attacked and received a deep razor slash that ran across his right cheek. It left a permanent scar which ran from the earlobe to the corner of the mouth. Joyce was convinced that his attackers were "Jewish communists". It was an incident that had a marked bearing on his outlook.