A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (55 page)

151.10
Trinity
: Trinity College; see 75.1 and 138.26 nn.

151.13
fetters of the reformed conscience
: i.e. the mind under the influence of Reformation thought: Trinity was founded to promote just such thought (see 75.1 n.).

151.14
droll statue of the national poet of Ireland
: ‘national poet’: Thomas Moore (1779–1852), Irish (sentimental) poet; the epithet is more English than Irish, though he was immensely popular; left Ireland in 1798 for England. The statue, which stands just outside the gates of Trinity College, is ‘droll’ because it depicts Moore wearing a classical toga.

151.18
Firbolg
: supposed early primitive inhabitants of Ireland, characteristically short and dark.

151.19
Milesian
: supposed invaders of Ireland led by Mileadh of Spain, characteristically poets and artists.

151.19
Davin
: Stephen thinks of him here because of his ardent support of all things Gaelic.

151.25–6
formal in speech with others
: Christian names would seldom be used outside the family.

151.27
Grantham Street
: just west of University College.

151.34
Michael Cusack, the Gael
: (1847–1907), founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association (see 51.13 n.); Joyce uses him again in
Ulysses
where he is the model for the ‘Citizen’ in ‘Cyclops’.

151.37
curfew was still a nightly fear
: in the early eighteenth century, then even more strongly under the Coercion Acts (passed between 1800 and 1921 for the administration of Ireland), curfew was imposed; it required both that people be indoors and that lights be extinguished.

151.39
Mat Davin
: Maurice Davin (1864–1927), athlete and founder (with Cusack) of the Gaelic Athletic Association (see 51.13 and 151.34 nn.); he and his brothers Pat and Tom held several world athletic records during the 1870s.

152.3
fenian
: see 32.4 n.

152.7
the cycles
: Irish epics or legendary stories of Irish heroes, which are grouped into ‘cycles’: the Ulster and Fenian cycles, the cycle of the Kings, the Mythological cycle. Cf. Joyce in ‘James Clarence Mangan’ (1902) (
CW
81–2 and
KB
59).

152.12
the foreign legion of France
: supposed romantic destination for young men; a military force in North Africa under French officers, comprising a rag-bag of expatriates, exiles, and French nationals.

152.14
tame geese
: as opposed to the ‘wild geese’, the name given to those Jacobite Irish soldiers who, after William III’s reconquest of Ireland, were allowed by the Treaty of Limerick (1691) to become exiles to France (see 96.38–97.1 n.).

152.23
streets of the poorer jews
: see 84.14 n.

152.26
disremember
:
PWJ
: ‘Disremember: to forget. Good old English; now out of fashion in England, but common in Ireland’ (248).

152.32
Buttevant
: small market town some 30 miles north-east of Cork city.

152.33
hurling match
: old Irish game, revived by the Gaelic Athletic Association; a cross between hockey and lacrosse with a stick called a
camann
(see 152.39 n.); fifteen players to each side.

152.34
Croke’s Own Boys and the Fearless Thurles
: typical of the teams formed
under the Gaelic Athletic Association’s encouragement; ‘Croke’: The Most Reverend Thomas William Croke (1824–1902), made (1875) archbishop of Cashel, south of Thurles (in Tipperary), highly political (in fact, advised by Pope Leo XIII to take a less active role in politics), first patron of the Gaelic Athletic Association (
F
418).

152.36
stripped to his buff… minding cool
:
PWJ
distinguishes this particular usage (i.e. not ‘to strip naked’ but ‘to strip to the waist’) as coming from Munster (227); ‘minding cool’: Gaelic:
cúl
: goal in ball games (
O
336).

152.36
Limericks
: after the town west of Thurles (see 152.34 n.) in County Limerick (things get a bit confused geographically in Davin’s description of who’s playing for whom).

152.38
wipe
:
PWJ
‘Wipe: a blow: all over Ireland: he gave him a wipe on the face. In Ulster, a goaly-wipe is a great blow on the ball with the
camaun
or hurley: such as will send it to the goal’ (351).

152.39
camann
: Gaelic:
camán
: crook: stick used in playing hurley (
O
336).

153.1
aim’s ace
:
PWJ
: ‘Aims-ace; a small amount, quantity, or distance. Applied in the following way very generally in Munster:—“He was within an aim’s-ace of being drowned” (very near). A survival in Ireland of the old Shakesperian word
ambs-ace
, meaning two aces or two single points in throwing dice, the smallest possible throw’ (209).

153.7
yoke
:
PWJ
: ‘Yoke; any article, contrivance or apparatus for use in some work’ (352).

153.8
mass meeting
: political gathering, the political strategy of holding mass (or ‘monster’) meetings to show support for particular causes or candidates was especially exploited by Daniel O’Connell (see 21.18 n.).

153.8–9
Castletownroche
: village in County Cork, 5 miles from Buttevant.

153.9
the cars
: see 16.4 n.

153.12
Ballyhoura hills … Kilmallock
: a 15-mile walk north into County Limerick.

153.15–16
redden my pipe
:
PWJ
: ‘Redden; to light: “Take the bellows and redden the fire.” An Irishman hardly ever
lights
his pipe: he
reddens
it’ (311).

153.29
Queenstown
: see 77.20 n.

153.34
There’s no one in it but ourselves
: ‘There’s no one in but ourselves’;
PWJ
: ‘When mere existence is predicated, the Gaelic
ann
(
in it
, i.e., “in existence”) is used’ (25).

154.1
Clane
: see 14.22 n.

154.6
first handsel
: ‘a gift or present (expressive of good wishes) at the beginning of a new year [or day] … deemed to ensure good luck’ or ‘the first money taken by a trader in the morning’ (
SOED
). Cf. Joyce in his Trieste notebook (
WD
94).

154.22
a student of Trinity
: stereotype: a Trinity student would be assumed to have money since going there was presumed to indicate one’s membership of the Anglo-Irish Protestant ‘ascendancy’ (by comparison with poorer Catholics who would attend University College); see 75.1 n.

154.22–3
Grafton Street
: street in central Dublin with fashionable and expensive shops.

154.24–5
slab was set … Wolfe Tone
: Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–98), founder of United Irishmen (see 7.33 n.), nationalist whose republicanism was secular and patriotic, raised support in America and in France, accompanied abortive French expeditions to Ireland in 1795 and 1798 (the 1798 Rebellion), captured, committed suicide on being refused soldier’s death (see
F
175). A slab to the memory of Tone (and to commemorate the centenary of the 1798 Rebellion) was placed at the north-west corner of Stephen’s Green (15 Aug. 1898); the sculpture was left unfinished and the slab eventually removed to widen the street (1922).

154.27
tawdry tribute
: perhaps;
G
quotes the
Irish Times
describing immense and enthusiastic crowds and stirring speeches (by W. B. Yeats and John O’Leary among others) and Maud Gonne’s finding the ceremony ‘dispiriting and disappointing’.

154.27
four French delegates
: since Tone raised French sympathy for the Irish cause.

154.27–8
a brake and one
: ‘a large carriage frame with no body, or a large wagonette’ (
SOED
,
S.V
. ‘break’).

154.29
Vive l’Irlande!
: French: ‘Long live Ireland!’

154.30
Stephen’s Green
: see 149.20 n.

154.36
Buck Egan
: John Egan (
c
. 1750–1810), politician, violently opposed to the Act of Union (1800).

154.36–7
Burnchapel Whaley
: Richard Whaley, Protestant and vehement anti-Catholic who gained the nickname ‘Burnchapel’ from the arson he purportedly committed in the Rebellion of 1798. He had a large house built (at 86) on St Stephen’s Green (
F
188) (later taken into the University College buildings).

155.3–4
was the jesuit house extraterritorial
: i.e. was their allegiance not to Ireland, but ‘extraterritorial’, i.e. to Rome (Jesuits take a special oath to the pope). Cf. Joyce in his Trieste notebook (
WD
102).

155.5
Ireland of Tone and of Parnell
: heroic, yes, but also republican Ireland; see Ch. I and 5.23–4, 33.8, and 154.24–5 nn.

155.24
a levite of the Lord
: Levites, under Judaic law, acted as assistants to the priests. Cf.
WD
102.

155.26
canonicals
: the canonical dress of the clergy.

155.27
ephod
: Jewish priestly vestment.

155.29
waiting upon wordlings
: see 131.18 n.

155.31
prelatic beauty
: ‘prelate’: historically, an abbot or prior; now a high ecclesiastical dignitary (
OERD
).

155.33
sweet odour of her sanctity
: ‘odour of sanctity’: ‘A sweet or balsamic odour stated to have been exhaled by the bodies of eminent saints at their death, or when exhumed, and held to attest their saintship; hence, figuratively, reputation for holiness; occasionally used ironically (
SOED
).

155.33–4
mortified … its obedience
: see 126.38 n.

156.5
Pulcra sunt quœ visa placent
: Latin: ‘Those things are beautiful which please the eye’; Stephen adapts Aquinas (
Summa Theologiae
, Part I, Question 5, Article 4, ‘Whether Good has the Aspect of a Final Cause’):
‘
pulchra enim dicunter ea quae visa placent
’: ‘beautiful things are said to be those which please when seen’ (trans. Shapcote, i. 26); Joyce copies this first Latin line into his Pola notebook (1904) (and translates it slightly differently) (
CW
147); see, too, Aubert, 101–5.

156.10
Bonum est in quod tendit appetitus
: Latin: ‘The good is comprehended in that which is desired’; an adaptation of Aquinas, who in
Summa Contra Gentiles
, B. III, Ch. III, develops the opening statement of (the Latin translation of) Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics
: ‘
bonum est quod omnis appuent
’ (‘the good is that which all things desire’) (see Aubert, 101–5); Aquinas uses a similar phrase in
Summa Theologiae
(Part I, Question 5, Article 4), whence the statement in 156.5 n. above derives. See, too, Joyce in his Pola notebook (
CW
146).

156.19
Like Ignatius he was lame
: Ignatius Loyola
was
lame, having been wounded in war (see 46.34 n.).

156.20–1
legendary craft of the company
: see 131.18 n.

156.23–4
he used the shifts … greater glory of God
: see 131.18 n. ‘for the greater glory of God’ is the English for the Jesuit motto
ad majorem dei gloriam
(see 46.35–6 n.).

156.26
obedience
: see 49.26 and 131.35 nn.

156.28–9
Similiter atque senis baculus
: Latin: Stephen’s translation, ‘Like a staff in an old man’s hand’, is accurate; from Loyola’s
Summarium Constitutionum
(1635) of the Jesuits, founded to give aid to the pope when needed (Sullivan, 120).

156.39
cliffs of Moher
: spectacular cliffs on the west coast of Ireland.

157.5–6
no such thing as free thinking … its own laws
: a standard Catholic refutation of free thought (thought free from the shackles placed upon it by organized religion and its attendant dogma).

157.15
Epictetus
: (
c
.55–
c
. 135), Greek philosopher, preached common brotherhood of man and the Stoic philosophy, referred to himself as ‘the old man’; his teachings were preserved by his student Arrian (b.
c
. 89) and posthumously published.

157.18–19
An old gentleman … soul is very like a bucketful of water
: ‘old gentleman’: Epictetus as ‘the old man’ who did so liken the soul ([Arrian’s]
Discourses of Epictetus
, iii. 3. 20 (ed. Christopher Gill, trans. Robin Hard (London: Dent, 1995), 158).