Back Issues

Introductions and contents

Number 1 - September 2011


Introduction to the first issue

(see this introduction on main Issues page)

Harald Beck and John Simpson


Joyce's People: The man behind Bartell d'Arcy (Harald Beck), Marcella, the Midget Queen (John Simpson), Captain Buller: that prodigious hit to square leg (John Simpson), Some notes on the triple life of Thomas Goodwin Keohler (Eamonn Finn and John Simpson) 

Joyce's Words: adelite - a delightful colour word (Harald Beck), basilicogrammate: the Egyptian royal secretary (John Simpson), contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality: jawbreakers and spelling bees (John Simpson)

Joyce's Allusions: Two unidentified songs in the Penelope episode (Harald Beck), Spellingbee conundrum (Harald Beck), When is a thigh not a thigh? (John Simpson), Mad cow at Cabra (John Simpson), Is Spurgeon in heaven? (Clive Hart), All change at the Empire Palace (John Simpson), Aquinas on friendship (John Simpson), The old hag with the yellow teeth (Harald Beck)

Joyce's Environs: The deleterious effect of copper sulphate on green peas (John Simpson), Bright's bright eyes (Harald Beck), Elster Grime and the Grand Old Opera (John Simpson), The Shah's ears and nose (Harald Beck), A Joycean price guide (John Smurthwaite)

In Progress: In my hand there steals another (Harald Beck)


Number 2 - March 2012

The first issue of the James Joyce Online Notes was published at the end of September 2011. Since then, we have published a range of new articles every few weeks and these (plus a further 21 entirely new articles) are now aggregated in the second issue of JJON.

We’d particularly like to thank those readers who have expressed interest in (and sometimes appreciation of) the site. We were delighted to find that it is linked to from various Joycean sites, and was even noted once or twice in publications such as the Irish Times.

The second issue contains 60 articles: it would be invidious to pick out individual ones, but take a look anyway at Bob Janusko on the Wonderworker (and read the original patent), or Eamonn Finn on ‘corns on his kismet’. Or read the latest on the (once) controversial replacement of goner by doner. Perhaps look through the brief lives of some of John Stanislaus Joyce’s colleagues at the office of the Dublin Collector General of the Rates, keep up to date with the latest on Norman W. Tupper, and discover the source of Molly's 'In my hand there steals another'. We hope that JJON is gradually helping to introduce more depth into our understanding of Dublin life in Joyce’s day.

An innovation in this issue is the tab called ‘Gifford Corrections’ [now just "Corrections"]. Under this you will find some examples of suggested amendments and additions to the standard notes provided by Don Gifford and others. We hope that this section will grow rapidly as more facts come to light which assist us in the interpretation of Joyce’s texts. We are confident that quite a few readers will have something in their files for this category and so we are providing a downloadable template, to make contributions as easy to compile and as uniform as possible.

A reminder that the easiest way to access articles is through the main Index (see the Index tab).

Harald Beck and John Simpson

 

Joyce's People: They simply fade away: news on the life and death of an old soldier - Joseph Casey, May's band of brothers, Iremonger among the runs, Fullback for the Bective Rangers, Marie Dubedat - the Irish Nightingale, Carlyle one, Carlisle nil, Miss Douce and Miss Kennedy at a different bar, Daniel T. Sheehan: a University friend, Norman W. Tupper and the policeman's lap, Collecting the rates: Buckley, Cotter, Crofton, Henchy, and Weatherup [including the next five items - James Crofton: a tradition of public service, William Weatherup: what the newspapers said, Robert Henchy: a choice of two collectors,   Edward Graham Cotter: another collector of rates?, Rifleman Buckley]

Joyce's Words: Miss This Miss That and Miss Theother, Or hanging up on the floor, Dog of my enemy, Join up the dots for Paradise, Volupcy and mystic bliss, The kidology of codology, Aquacity: awash with watery thoughts, Eatondph and douradora, I'd like my job! - Not likely! (Eamonn Finn), Lapland closer home, Done but not forgotten

Joyce's Allusions: Vengeance and the shores of Manhattan, Famine relief from the Sultan of Turkey, A dose of quackery, A mite of cheese, the bestest puttiest longbreak yet, Lawn Tennyson: the poetry of motion, My brandnew riddle - the Rose of Castile, Will you be my man will you carry my can, Beery bass baritones, Absent-minded warriors, Peter Parley's Tales of the ancients, Writing Elijah [including the next five items - Silly Sunphonies: does Jesus want me for a sunbeam?, Slippery gamblers, Philately is for bumboosers, Advertising patter, Next stop Paradise!], Æ IOU: two debts to Russell?, The Great Harmonia and the music of the spheres, Lenehan and the great outdoors, A good day for trimming your nails, Workaday workers in the Evening Telegraph office, The dragon slothfully drags her scaly folds, Stealing upon larks, In Molly's hand there steals another, Corny kismet (Eamonn Finn)

Joyce's Environs: The destruction of the open-air pulpit at St. Mark's, Magazines for Christmas (1898), Genesis good for you, Bewitching eyes beneath a well-drawn eyebrow line, Sporting issues and racing tissues, Reliable rubber goods - perish the thought!, He cures fits!, Hokypoky hocus pocus,  That Wonder Worker  (Robert Janusko), The Coffee Riddle

Corrections to Printed Annotations

 

Number 3 - September 2012

In the course of the past year JJON has provided over a hundred notes that offer new insights into Ulysses and Joyce's earlier works. We would like to thank Ronan Crowley, Eamonn Finn, Clive Hart, Bob Janusko, John Smurthwaite, Aida Yared, and Philip Keel Geheber for their valuable contributions.

New notes (in the third issue) on Lynam in Ulysses and Mulrennan in Portrait continue to demonstrate that Joyce's name-dropping is done with a purpose. In the Words section another set of ephemeral phrases (such as Only for the other dog) have been preserved and explained, while in Allusions we learn what Dusty Rhodes has in common with the man in the macintosh and what specific books two dubious titles in Bloom's library might refer to.

Harald Beck and John Simpson

    

Joyce's People: Susy Nagle and her concertina dress, Mrs Gus Ruhlin: boxing and women's suffrage, Philip Beaufoy and the philosopher's tone, Popping into Lynam's, Mulrennan from the west of Ireland

Joyce's Words: Molly's doggery-woggery, The rabbits that caused all the trouble, Only for the other dog, Shine on, Harvest Moon, Solving the doubles, Drums of braided cord

Joyce's Allusions: Glue-pot steals heart, My mother has married me... (Aida Yared), Bonsoir la compagnie, William Field, the bard with the tumbling hair at Queen Dido's banquet, A heaven-sent dove with razor-sharp teeth, A perfect cretic floating down the O-hi-O, Cheaper booze, The Hidden Life of Christ Revealed, Killarney's Beauties, Dusty Rhodes the Popular Tramp, Death of a Sinner, Perfide Albion - Perfidious Albion (Philip Keel Geheber), The irreverent Richard Blacow

Joyce's Environs: The Italian colony in South Dublin, Kidfitting corsetry, Tom Rochford's smart idea at Crampton Court, That English invention: The Wonder Worker in nighttown (Ronan Crowley), Pettiwidths: thrills and spills with Gerty MacDowell

Corrections to Printed Annotations


Number 4 - March 2013

The fourth issue of the James Joyce Online Notes contains thirty-one articles, each of which seeks to elucidate some aspect of the people, environment, language, and allusions which form the backdrop to Joyce’s life and novels. Robert Janusko provides documentary evidence for three sources cited in Joyce’s notebooks; Harald Beck identifies Joseph Patrick Nannetti’s father (at variance here with the Dictionary of Irish Biography); John Simpson investigates the “Madams” of Lower Mecklenburgh Street in a “lupanarology” (Vincent Deane’s word) which traces their progress through different addresses in Dublin over thirty years or so.

Other articles identify the real Emily Lyons, whose parting from Nora Barnacle in Galway Harbour in the mid 1890s is so evocatively described by Joyce in his notes to Exiles; the expression lying behind the name “Mrs Poll Ash”; and the doctor (though not Dr Freud) “who can tell us what those words mean”. And speaking of bunions, we look at Lenehan and Lord Dundreary “married and settled”.

Other features new to this issue include “keywords” added at the end of each article, by means of which readers can discover further articles on the same general topic: the keyword “American Civil War” at the article “Vengeance and the shores of Manhattan”, for example, leads to four other articles referencing the Civil War in America. A new tab (“Joyce’s Library”) takes the reader to pages containing a list of the books that formed Joyce’s library in Trieste, with links wherever possible to facsimiles of the texts themselves (often to the impression Joyce owned). Finally, the “Gifford Corrections” page [now just "Corrections"] has been restyled so that the notes appear in text order.

Harald Beck and John Simpson


Joyce's People:  The Madams of Nighttown; or, a Dublin lupanarology [including Mrs Mack at No 85, Mrs Arnott at No 83, Mrs Arnold at No 40 Lower Cumberland Street and elsewhere, Bella Cohen at No 82 (not 81), Summing up the Madams], Gallant Mick Hart, Emily Lyons sets sail for Boston, J. P. Nannetti and the Lord Mayor's antecedents, Ditto MacAnaspey and the same for me, please

Joyce's Words: Duodenal harmony, Perverted from the truth, Praise Be! Here comes Old "Glory Hallelujurum" Purefoy, Head first and everything else behind

Joyce's Allusions: Don't leave your mother an orphan!, The unicorn's song, An Affair of Honour, As ugly as Poll Ash, Lenehan's bunions, Cuthbert the Wanderer, Malory and Sir Leopold, King, A doctor but not Dr Freud, Pater: Leopold the Epicurean, Ossian's poems - notesheets

Joyce's Environs: A good cigar is a smoke, Rheumatic wheels, Caught alive - oh!, Roll up for the human ostrich, The Corridors of the National Library, Rooms for Antient Concerts, The Prince and the Freeman

Corrections to Printed Annotations


Number 5 - September 2013

The fifth issue of the James Joyce Online Notes continues its short-lived tradition of publishing articles on a range of different topics relating to Joyce’s Dublin. As before, it contains a mixture of biographical, historical, and lexical commentary, digging into areas which have previously been incompletely understood or critically disregarded, particular as we (as a culture) forget once-significant details of the historical environment over passing generations.

Terence Killeen and Vincent Deane both offer two articles each, with Vincent discussing the Opal Hush and Molly’s taittering lips, and Terence clarifying  subleaders  and references to Thomas Campbell and Samuel Ferguson.

Alongside these biographical articles we would also draw attention to Homan Potterton’s historical study of his Joycean ancestor mired in a lunacy case, and Austin Briggs’s reflections on sandfrog showers in Gibraltar.

We are delighted to have an article by Chris Kane on his grandfather Matthew Kane who, in the role of Martin Cunningham, is a dominant character in sections of Dubliners and  Ulysses. Similarly we are indebted to John Gallaher, son of Brendan John Gallaher (Joyce’s “Brennie”) for supplying background material for John Simpson’s article on Gerald and Brendan Gallaher, itself part of a large panoramic view of the Gallaher clan presented in several articles.

Harald Beck provides explication of the forgotten advertising cliché “that tired feeling” and of the cobbles that are washed off; John Simpson ruminates on “dear dirty Dublin” and whether it should really be ascribed to Lady Morgan (Sydney Owenson), and discovers why Joyce referred to a specific issue of the Culotte Rouge as Pantalon Blanc et Culotte Rouge.

Harald Beck and John Simpson



Joyce's people: In Lunacy of Potterton (Homan Potterton), Thos. H. Dennany on a spit of land, Freddy Mayer and Joseph Poole's Myriorama, Pat Claffey and the Dublin convents, Wondrous little Tommy Conneff from the short-grass county of Kildare, James Joyce and Matthew Kane (Chris Kane), Ignatius per ignotius: the short life and extraordinary times

of Frederick Gallaher [1: Making his way in the world, 2: Fred's Brilliant Career with Sport and the Invincibles, 3: More practical jokes and international sport, 4: Life and death in London; Addendum: 5a: The eccentricities of a grandfather: Patrick Frederick Gallaher, 5b: Newspapers in the blood: John Blake Gallaher, 5c: Gerald and Brendan Gallaher: the next generation], Brunny Lynam the medical student


Joyce's Words: Take me to your subleader!  (Terence Killeen), The fifth quarter is the butcher's profit, Fried hencods' roe and mutton kidneys: these are a few of his favourite things, Molly's taittering lips (Vincent Deane), Washing off the cobbles


Joyce's Allusions: From Swerve of Shore to Bend of Bay Area: the Afterlife of Opal Hush, Edward FitzGerald at sea: Oxen notesheet 17, From Meredith to Mulligan via Moore, Treading water to paradise, Observing from his quaint-perched aerie, Molly's sandfrog shower in Gilbraltar (Austin Briggs), Lady Morgan and "dear dirty Dublin", Nothing to sit down on - nowhere to put it, Pantalons Blancs and Culottes Rouges, A pillow on the billow, Two poetic snippets: row me o'er the ferry

and maledictive stones (Terence Killeen)


Joyce's Environs: The longstemmed Jacob pipe, Bells to call the servants, A tonic for that tired feeling


Corrections to Printed Annotations


Number 6 - March 2014

This issue of the James Joyce Online Notes brings together twenty-three new articles on Joyce and his world – ten in the category Joyce’s Allusions, seven from Joyce’s Environs, and three each from Joyce’s People and Joyce’s Words.

The longer articles tend to document Joyce’s People and Joyce’s Environs, as authors often find themselves presenting the results of considerable historical research into the characters or world of Joyce’s Dublin. In this issue we would particularly draw readers’ attention to Andrew Tierney’s One of Britain’s fighting men’: Major Malachi Powell and Ulysses, a remarkable investigation into the model for Bloom’s father-in-law Major Powell, and also In the carriage for Paddy Dignam’s funeral: Bloom was right all along, which (contrary to established views) places Bloom on the right-hand side of the carriage taking himself, Cunningham, Powell, and Dedalus across Dublin to Paddy Dignam’s funeral.

The editors are grateful for excellent contributions from Eamonn Finn on Molly’s “Iron Nails Ran In”, from Ronan Crowley on “Hamlet, I am thy father’s gimlet”. Further articles discuss the history of several rhymes, songs, and expressions, such as “Shake hands, brother. You’re a rogue and I’m another”, “Kick the Pope before us” (sometimes sung to the tune of Garryowen), and the discovery of the popular sentimental painting of a child and a dog called “Can’t you talk?

Wherever you look in Joyce’s writings there are stories that can be teased out to clarify the context of his narrative. We hope that this journal is able to provide a quiet background commentary on some of Joyce’s network of forgotten associations.

Harald Beck and John Simpson


Joyce's People: Wheelmen don't eat quiche (John Simpson), 'One of Britain's fighting men': Major Malachi Powell and Ulysses  (Andrew Tierney), Professor Bloody-Big-Umbrella Glynn (John Simpson)


Joyce's Words: Telling crams (Harald Beck), Head upon shoulder (Eamonn Finn), The tree of heaven (John Simpson)


Joyce's Allusions: Lincoln, but not Abraham (Harald Beck), The destruction of the fittest (John Simpson), Gimlet sounded like poetry with Hamlet (Ronan Crowley), Mr O'Madden Burke's strong weakness (Harald Beck), I have sinned, I have suffered (Eamonn Finn/John Simpson), Can't you talk? (Harald Beck), And do the brave deserve the fair? (John Simpson), You're a rogue and I'm another (John Simpson), Kicking the Pope before us (John Simpson), White silence in marble (Harald Beck)


Joyce's Environs: Carlisle girls (Harald Beck), Left-off clothes  (John Simpson), Advertising names that speak to you: 1 - Bacilikil (Eamonn Finn), Advertising names that speak to you: 2 - Veribest  (John Simpson), Advertising names that speak to you: 3 - Uwantit (John Simpson), Fashionable cobwebs (John Simpson), In the carriage for Paddy Dignam's funeral: Bloom was right all along (Harald Beck/John Simpson)


Corrections to Printed Annotations


Number 7 - September 2014

The twenty-four articles in the seventh issue of the James Joyce Online Notes bring the series total to over two hundred. The editors are delighted to welcome three new contributors - Ian Gunn, George Bergman and William Huth - alongside others who have already contributed to JJON in the past.

Ian Gunn relocates the steps at the end of Leahy's Terrace on Sandymount Strand and shows that we have been thinking that Bloom and Gerty were further away from the Star of the Sea church than was actually the case. Aida Yared remarkably discovers the postcard from Bolivia – with the legend “Choza de Indios. Beni, Bolivia” - that Murphy proudly displays to the cronies.

There are several other strands amongst the articles. Two articles review aspects of the much-contested "U.P: up" debate, one from a lexicographical angle and another seeking the identity of Breen's anonymous libeller. Terence Killeen investigates two letters which shed new light on the relationship between Gogarty/Mulligan and his "afflicted" mother, and Harald Beck uncovers the identity of Gogarty's mysterious aunt. John Simpson takes another look at some old songs alluded to by Joyce, and finds Chase me, Charlie and Sister Susie's Playing, amongst others.

Numerous expressions are examined, often with a view to demonstrating their occurrence before Joyce. How did the milk get into the coconut? Is there anybody here for there? (and vice versa). Could a swim duck? And new light on the arm-strap around which Bloom wrapped himself on the road to Glasnevin and Paddy Dignam’s funeral.

Harald Beck and John Simpson


Joyce's People: The afflicted mother - two letters (Terence Killeen), The anonymous libeller of Denis Breen (George Bergman), Then here's a health to Mulligan's aunt (Harald Beck)


Joyce's Words: The forgotten arm-strap (John Simpson), Philirenists: peace-loving monarchs (John Simpson), The "charming soubrette" of the stage (John Simpson), Unlawfully watching and/or besetting (John Simpson), Laid on like the gas (Harald Beck), His brain tipped over (Harald Beck)


Joyce's Allusions: The milk in the coconut - a hairy puzzle (Harald Beck), "Is there anybody here for there?", as the railway porter asked the passengers (John Simpson), Caught it while it was flying (John Simpson), Beatrice Harraden guiding the thread and Clarence E. Mulford shanghaied: Nausicaa notesheets 4 and 8 (Harald Beck), What is Sister Susie's Playing?  (John Simpson), I smell the blood of an Irishman (Harald Beck), Give and take is not fair play (John Simpson), Shoehorning your head into your hat (Harald Beck), U.P: up and away (John Simpson), Ducks swim? (Harald Beck), Bad luck arrives at Whitsuntide (William Huth), Chase me Charlie, chase me Charlie, chase me Charlie do (John Simpson), Free fox, free hen-roost (Harald Beck)


Joyce's Environs: A postcard from Bolivia (John Simpson), Stepping back to Leahy's terrace (Ian Gunn)


Corrections to Printed Annotations


Number 8 - March 2015

The eighth issue of the James Joyce Online Notes contains twenty-seven new articles answering – or offering suggestions on – numerous questions posed by Ulysses and other writings by Joyce.

Ian Gunn continues his topographical review of the Dublin Bay coastline in Stephen’s Stroll on the Strand, with new ideas on the route taken by Stephen around Sandymount; Harald Beck looks closely at J. J. O’Molloy, and uncovers a probable model in the sparkling but short-lived Dublin lawyer John O’Mahony (d. 1904); Ronan Crowley examines Joyce and Buffalo Bill, who “shoots to kill”; and John Simpson takes a panoramic view of Joyce’s maternal relatives, the Flynns, from the starch factory on Back Lane in Dublin to the dinner party of The Dead.

Further articles provide documentary evidence for the journalists’ union term dayfather (and nightfather), along with biographical information on “Old Monks”, who is credited with this title in Aeolus; the late nineteenth-century history of “posing for the ensemble” (i.e. in the nude) is uncovered; Joyce’s “Galeria Becche, Santiago” is unmasked as the arcade (not art gallery) Galeria Beeche in downtown Santiago, with additional notes on Hector Beeche himself; and the history of the expression “my brown son” is explored in the domain from which many of Joyce’s allusions arise: the music-hall.

The issue concludes with that image of floating in the Dead Sea reading a book, under the shade of a parasol, from early in Lotus Eaters.

Harald Beck and John Simpson


Joyce's People: Flynnlandia, or the rise (and fall) of the House of Usher (John Simpson) [1: Introduction (John Simpson),

2: Patrick Flynn the elder and Patrick Flynn the younger (John Simpson), 3: Flynns - the next generation (John Simpson), 4: The Misses Flynn, their other brothers, and Mary Ellen Callanan (John Simpson),   5: The Misses Flynn's grand annual concerts (John Simpson), 6: Echoes of the Flynn family in "The Dead" (John Simpson)], Old Parkinson, the English tenor (John Simpson), The short but remarkable life of John O'Mahony (Harald Beck), Monks, night fathers, and day fathers  (John Simpson /Harald Beck)


Joyce's Words: Altogether now for the ensemble (Harald Beck), Undertones of the sacred offices (Harald Beck), The benefit of speedpills (Harald Beck)


Joyce's Allusions: Mr Brown, Mr Robinson, and the average Joe (John Simpson), Lenehan and the great outdoors: (b)  Catching a cold through an open gate (Harald Beck), Soap-eating in the Arctic (John Simpson), What made a crocodile bite the fluke of an anchor? (John Simpson), A Fuller picture of the Lollards (Harald Beck), Pom! he shouted twice: Some Memories of Buffalo Bill (1919) in Ulysses (Ronan Crowley), Brown sons (John Simpson), Washing possible is more than possible (John Simpson), The green gem of Ireland set in the silver sea (John Simpson), The tonic that braces the system (John Simpson), Fair and forty goes far in a day (John Simpson), On the Dead Sea, afloat with a parasol (Harald Beck)


Joyce's Environs: Salty missionaries (John Simpson), A galería masquerading under the name of "Becche" (John Simpson), Stephen's stroll on the strand  (Ian Gunn)


Corrections to Printed Annotations


Number 9 - September 2015

This ninth issue of the James Joyce Online Notes includes seventeen articles, and brings the total number of articles published in the series to two hundred and sixty. Harald Beck publishes details of a previously unknown correspondence between Joyce and the sculptor August Suter, to which access has been generously granted by the sculptor’s grandsons.

In the Ithaca episode Joyce describes Bloom in the style of a Dublin lost-dog advert. But the text was actually based on a curious and real advertisement run in the Dublin papers in 1902. See A missing gent answering to the name of Bloom for the details. A comparable article identifies the source of Joyce’s horror headline A child bit by a bellows in Aeolus.

Bob Janusko examines the origins of Hamlet’s sledded poleaxe, and further articles explore brown-paper suits, a death at the Queen’s Hotel, Ennis (“where Rudolph Bloom […] died”), and the variable price of Abram coal.

Bob also suggested that, as well carrying a list of the contents of Joyce’s Trieste library – with links to the original texts (and, wherever possible, the original editions owned by Joyce) – we might do the same for Joyce’s Paris library. In line with the policy and preference of this site, we have now provided a linked list for the Paris library, including those books published (or presented to Joyce) before the publication of Ulysses. So readers may be interested in clicking through, for instance, to a facsimile of the Dollard Printing House’s Souvenir of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Opening of the Gaiety Theatre 27th November,1871 or Raphaël Petrucci’s Les peintres chinois.

Harald Beck and John Simpson


Joyce's People: Death in Ennis (Harald Beck), James Joyce to August Suter (Harald Beck) 


Joyce's Words: Changing his drink (John Simpson), All bets are "off" (John Simpson), Hamlet's sledded poleaxe (Robert Janusko)

 

Joyce's Allusions: An anatomy of Gray's Eulogy (Harald Beck), Newsboys and the child-biting bellows  (John Simpson), Milking ducks grandmother's way (John Simpson), Orphans in the Underworld (John Simpson), Puffed and powdered, cocked and shaved (John Simpson), Retirement into public life (John Simpson), The half-seas-over empire of Britain (John Simpson), Musical breakfasts and a walk with the band (Harald Beck) 

 

Joyce's Environs: Brown-paper suits in fashion (John Simpson), The cost of coal from Flower and M'Donald (John Simpson), A missing gent answering to the name of Bloom (John Simpson)


Corrections to Printed Annotations


Number 10 - March 2016

This tenth issue of James Joyce Online Notes (JJON) includes articles by four of the authors - Clive Hart, Eamonn Finn, Harald Beck, and John Simpson – who contributed to the first issue in September 2011, as well as contributions by Terence Killeen and Ian Gunn, who have also contributed to intervening issues. Since 2011 JJON has published 274 articles, variously associated with “Joyce’s People”, “Joyce’s Words”, “Joyce’s Allusions”, and “Joyce’s Environs”.

JJON has investigated how action sequences in Ulysses can be mapped against the reality of Dublin, and this issue contains three articles of this nature: Ian Gunn and Clive Hart follow Bloom’s crumpled throwaway down the Liffey, Harald Beck plots Bloom’s peregrinations through the old Ormond Hotel (leading on to questions about the crossblind on the front window), and then (with Eamonn Finn) tracks Father Conmee on his walk to Artane.

Joyce’s vocabulary is a topic of perennial interest, and John Simpson examines the yogibogeybox, and finds that mystic yogibogeys preceded Joyce. The biography of Joyce’s minor characters receives a boost from Terence Killeen’s further investigations of Alfred and Marion Hunter, from Harald Beck’s interest in Herr Hauptmann Hainau, and from John Simpson’s study of Professor MacHugh.

From time to time, new information arises that is relevant to articles already published in JJON. In this issue, “washing possible” is augmented with a copy of a postcard (discovered by Aida Yared) contemporary with Joyce’s use and earlier than other printed evidence, and Aida has also discovered a postcard relevant to Joyce’s “missing gent” advertisement.

Harald Beck and John Simpson


Joyce's People: The reluctant professor MacHugh (John Simpson) [The reluctant professor MacHugh 2 (John Simpson), The reluctant professor MacHugh 3 (John Simpson), The reluctant professor MacHugh 4 (John Simpson)], 

"Fitz-Epsykure": the further adventures of Alfred and Marion Hunter (Terence Killeen), Heinous Hainau and the Blooms (Harald Beck)


Joyce's Words: An expression tossed around like snuff at a wake (Harald Beck), Exclaiming St Denis (Harald Beck),  

The mystic yogibogeybox (John Simpson), It's just one thing laughing at another (Harald Beck), The swinging whiskers (Harald Beck)


Joyce's Environs: The crossblind crux (Harald Beck), Joyce's Ormond Hotel (Harald Beck),  Swansway: Father Conmee's walk to Artane (Eamonn Finn and Harald Beck), Cross words for crossed letters (Harald Beck), A crumpled throwaway: an arresting tale (Ian Gunn)


Corrections to Printed Annotations


Number 11 - November 2016

Clive Hart remembered

This issue is dedicated to the memory of Clive Hart (14 May 1931 – 27 August 2016)

photographs by Fritz Senn and Ian Gunn


With Clive the Joyce community has lost one of its most brilliant, knowledgeable and inspiring scholars of the last fifty years. He advanced Finnegans Wake studies dramatically with his handmade and yet incredibly accurate Concordance of Finnegans Wake, his pioneering Structure and Motive in Finnegans Wake and his collaboration with Fritz Senn in the A Wake Newslitter journal. His work on Ulysses has also produced outstanding publications: James Joyce's Ulysses: Critical Essays and James Joyce’s Dublin. A Topographical Guide to the Dublin of Ulysses (with Ian Gunn).

The range of his interests and talents was truly humbling. Originally studying to become a physicist he was a competent pilot and an acknowledged specialist on the history of flight and man-lifting kites. Together with his second wife Kay Stevenson, a Milton scholar, he researched and wrote Heaven and the Flesh: Imagery of Desire from the  Renaissance to the Rococo. He was fluent in the true sense of the word in Latin (and as such translated and annotated numerous early tracts), French, German and Swedish, and his love and knowledge of classical music was deeply impressive.

This issue contains Clive Hart’s (and in a supporting role my) work-in-progress attempt at making the “frightful jumble” of the last section of the Oxen of the Sun episode more intelligible. Ian Gunn, who has been working again with Clive on a second edition of Joyce’s Dublin. A Topographical Guide to the Dublin of Ulysses in recent years has written his article on 7 Eccles Street, "The demise of Ithaca", especially for this issue.

Other features of the issue include a further set of Dublin place-name pronunciations by Robert Nicholson, with links to related historical maps by John Simpson; an update on the OED’s coverage of Joyce in its June 2016 update; Tim Conley’s note on the Crocodile Syllogism, as well as commentary on “he died of a Tuesday”,  “hardy annuals”, and several other expressions from Ulysses.

Harald Beck


Some memories of Clive

John Gordon: I've never known a scholar I admired more. In "Middlemarch," George Eliot writes about brilliant people tainted by "spots of commonness."  I sure couldn't, and can't, see any in his case.

Ian Gunn: I loved his down-to-earth pragmatism and the way he embraced doubt in his work. He never let theory get in the way of a cold hard fact.

Bob Janusko: He and his work were treasured models for the rest of us. 

Harald Beck: Clive was the only wise man I have ever met. He cast a cold eye on death, but a warm one on life. 

Aida Yared: A scholar, a gentleman, and a lovely human being ...

Vivien Igoe: A nicer man never trod.


Joyce's Words: Pronouncing Joyce (Robert Nicholson, John Simpson, etc.), Comings and Goings: Joyce's words in the Oxford English Dictionary (John Simpson),Comings and Goings: June 2016 update (John Simpson), A mess of four (Harald Beck), Hardy annuals in the nursery of life (Harald Beck)


Joyce's Allusions: Did he bring his crocodile? (Tim Conley), A night of Irish entertainment (Harald Beck), Brass by gold in your pocket (Harald Beck), Hanged of a Tuesday (Harald Beck), To the going-out entrance (Harald Beck)


Joyce's Environs: Oxen of the Sun - allocating text in the closing paragraphs (Clive Hart, with Harald Beck), 

The demise of Ithaca (Ian Gunn)


Corrections to Printed Annotations


Number 12 - June 2017

The twelfth issue of the James Joyce Online Notes contains a mix of articles on people, places, phrases, and customs from Joyce’s Dublin. The origin of that nickname for the Freeman’s Journal, “an Old Woman in Prince’s street”, is investigated (the Freeman’s didn’t publish from Prince’s Street until 2 May 1826). On a similar topographical line, Harald Beck researches George Moore’s reference to London as “the Brixton Empire” (1901 - William Archer: “British Empire, you mean”; George Moore: “I call it the Brixton Empire”), which Joyce alludes to in “Aeolus”.

Did King Edward VII have a penchant for jujubes (fruit pastilles)? Joyce calls him the “jujube-sucking King” in “Lestrygonians”. It turns out that the King did indeed spend some of his leisure hours sucking bulls’ eyes and jujubes.

Attention is naturally focused on No 7 Eccles Street, but what was happening at No 8, next-door. “Woods his name is”, as Joyce tells us. “Stopping by Woods next-door” looks at the life of Patrick Woods and his wife Rosanna, with information provided by their great-grandson Paul Duffy as well as Dublin archive sources. Their tale is one that Joyce will not have known in full, starting promisingly – as the newly published photograph of the couple indicates – before family problems open up a path of decline.

No followers allowed” traces the genesis of this stock expression from newspaper small ads from the 18th century, and other articles cover the “rich” of the bacon and a “kish” of brogues (ignorant as a ..).

There are further regular updates to the pronunciation and mapping page “Joyce’s Pronunciations” and “Coming and Goings: Joyce and the OED”.

Harald Beck and John Simpson  



Joyce's People: Stopping by Woods next-door (John Simpson)


Joyce's Words: Comings and Goings: OED September 2016 to March 2017 updates (John Simpson), 

Kishes, brogues, and ignorance (John Simpson), A rich breakfast of rashers (Harald Beck)


Joyce's Allusions: Signs of resentment: to have something up your nose against me (John Simpson), 

George Moore and the Brixton Empire (Harald Beck), An old woman in Prince's street (John Simpson), 

No followers allowed (John Simpson)


Joyce's Environs: The jujube-sucking King (John Simpson)


Corrections to Printed Annotations


Number 13 - June 2018

This new issue of the James Joyce Online Notes reviews some old chestnuts while at the same time offering new interpretations, as well as updates to the ongoing projects.

Harald Beck looks in detail at the problematic line associated with the German organist and composer Johannes Jeep: “Und alle Schiffe brücken”. Did Joyce misquote this intentionally? The Jeep-crux investigates the possibilities.

We are glad to publish notes by Dylan Emerick-Brown and Ronan Crowley, respectively on how to calculate the speed of the train to Cork from Dublin from the distance between telegraph poles, in Portrait, and on why Professor MacHugh addresses J. J. Molloy “in ferial tone”, while John Simpson examines the history of Jenny Lind soup.

There are further regular updates to the pronunciation and mapping page “Joyce’s Pronunciations” and “Coming and Goings: Joyce and the OED”.

Harald Beck and John Simpson



Joyce's People: Charles Dawson - lecturer on talking about everything (Harald Beck), John O'Mahony and the Language of the Outlaw (Ronan Crowley)


Joyce's Words: Comings and Goings: OED January 2018 update (John Simpson), Pronouncing Joyce (Robert Nicholson, John Simpson), Gods and clods (John Simpson)


Joyce's Allusions: The Jeep-crux (Harald Beck)


Joyce's Environs: Burke's!  (Harald Beck), Joyce's Libraries updated (John Simpson), Jenny Lind soup for the professional soprano (John Simpson), The speed of the train during prayer (Dylan Emerick-Brown)


Corrections to Printed Annotations


Number 14 - June 2019

This issue marks the three-hundredth article published in the James Joyce Online Notes since it first went online in 2011. The sequence over this eight-year period started with Harald Beck’s investigation into the life of Bartell d’Arcy (Bartle McCarthy), and has – to date – reached No 305, with Ronan Crowley’s identification of Joyce’s notesheet references to William Wrankmore’s translation of Moritz Busch’s Guide for travellers in Egypt and adjacent countries.

Obscure? Well, yes. Partly because of Joyce’s intended obscurantism, but also because over the years we have forgotten many of the references which would have been familiar, or at least not unknown, to the people who inhabited Joyce’s world at the turn of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth.

We are, as ever, grateful to Joyce scholars for providing JJON with further articles uncovering forgotten details or for making connections that have evaded researchers in the past. In this issue, Geert Lemout follows the trail of moechus ("adulterer"), which Joyce curiously describes as a neuter noun, and then returns later in the issue to look into Buck Mulligan’s use of Swinburne. Terence Killeen puts the case that "the king of Spain’s daughter" may derive not directly from the nursery rhyme, but from a poem by Padraic Colum.

Other pieces in this issue include John Simpson’s account of the life of Francis Irwin (a significant component of Joyce’s character Garrett Deasy): did he really attend TCD? What is the story? And Harald Beck discovers that Lenehan’s "Did she fall or was she pushed?" – addressed "dreamily" to Miss Kennedy as she calls a temporary halt to her reading – suggests that she was not reading a "smutty" text, as has been proposed, but more likely something more respectable.

Harald Beck and John Simpson


Joyce's People: Francis Irwin, TCD, in the fusty world of Garrett Deasy (John Simpson)


Joyce's Words: Pet lambs in Dublin (John Simpson), Moechus and scortum: not so neuter words (Geert Lernout)


Joyce's Allusions: Ossian's Poems - notesheets  with updates (Ronan Crowley), Save China's millions (John Simpson), 

Miss Kennedy's reading matter (Harald Beck), The King of Spain's daughter (Terence Killeen), “He told me about, hold on, Swinburne, was it, no?” Buck Mulligan and the poet (Geert Lernout)


Corrections to Printed Annotations


Number 15 - December 2019

It will come as no surprise to anyone interested in the real world behind the fiction of Joyce’s novels that this issue of the James Joyce Online Notes contains two articles involving the layout of buildings. Aidan Collins examines some late-nineteenth century plans for the Holles Street Hospital, dating from before 1904 and so showing the layout of the old hospital that Joyce and Gogarty would have known. Alongside this, in the Environs section of the website, Ian Gunn investigates whether the Blooms had an internal toilet – though he necessarily bases his work on historical and literary evidence, as floor plans are lacking.

Vincent Deane finds Bloom, late in a confusing day, confusing Mercadante and Meyerbeer, and John Simpson uncovers echoes of Joyce’s “shrieks of silence” in the music hall of the 1890s. William Brockman and Sabrina Alonso reconstruct the performing repertoire of The English Players, the theatrical group which causes Joyce to lock horns with Henry Carr, ex-soldier and British Consular official, and Ronan Crowley traces Joyce’s reading of Camille Flammarian’s Astronomy for Amateurs for quotations from the book hidden in Ulysses.

Last but not least, Harald Beck looks for the identity of the UCD student who “assumed the toga girilis” in her contributions to St Stephen’s magazine and doubtless elsewhere, tracing her life – and her academic success - from her origins in southern Ireland up to Loreto College in St Stephen’s Green in Dublin.

Harald Beck and John Simpson


      

Joyce's People: The girl in the toga girilis (Harald Beck)


Joyce's Allusions: Rossini, Mercadante, and Meyerbeer (Vincent Deane), Shrieks of silence! (John Simpson), 

Camille Flammarion's Astronomy for Amateurs (1904) in Ulysses (Ronan Crowley)


Joyce's Environs: Exit Carr (William Brockman and Sabrina Alonso), A floor plan for the Holles Street Hospital (Aidan Collins), Sanitary matters at No. 7 Eccles street (Ian Gunn)


Corrections to Printed Annotations


Number 16 - September 2020

The central buildings of Ulysses continue to exercise a strange fascination over readers. They may be insignificant in real terms, like 7 Eccles Street, but they develop a mythology of their own through countless readings, films, and just the passage of time. How well did Joyce know them? Is his description accurate? How can we prove any of this. Ian Gunn has done most in recent years to answer these questions and more with regard to No 7. In this issue of JJON he draws things together with what "was initially going to be a correction of a correction of an update", but finished up telling "the story of the uncovering of the structure of No. 7 Eccles Street from the beginning". If that whets your interest, turn to Beyond the façade – Uncovering the physical structure of No. 7 Eccles Street.

     Vivien Igoe has published biographies of almost all of the "minor characters" in Ulysses, but not Katey Keogh. We are delighted that she has rectified that for us here, using her trademark assimilation of documentary research and personal contact, in Katey Keogh, Assistant at the Volta Cinema, Dublin.

    One of the many strengths of contributors to JJON is their ability to track down the emergence of an expression which in due course appears in Joyce's works. Marc A. Mamigonian examines "Take off that white hat", and compares it with "Who stole the donkey", two cries from the stalls of Dublin theatreland in Joyce's day. Terence Killeen revisits an editorial in the Freeman's Journal of September 1912 "about the Styrian cure for the foot-and-mouth disease".

     Áine Nolan explores "The Ursuline Manual in 'Circe'", and its relationship to the "Prayer for the suffering souls" alluded to in Ulysses, and Harald Beck considers whether the first "Lady Freemason" really did hide in a clock to uncover the society's secrets, as Nosey Flynn gleefully recounts.

    Next year will mark the tenth year since JJON began publishing. Please do mail the editors if you have an article, or a thought for an article, that you'd like to discuss (jjon.org [at] googlemail.com).

Harald Beck and John Simpson


Joyce's People: Katey Keogh, Assistant at the Volta Cinema, Dublin  (Vivien Igoe)

Joyce's Words: Comings and Goings: Joyce's words in the Oxford English Dictionary (John Simpson)

Joyce's Allusions: Of white hats and stolen donkeys  (Marc A. Mamigonian)

Joyce's Environs: The Ursuline Manual in 'Circe'  (Áine Nolan); The Lady Freemason and the clock (Harald Beck); On the authorship of a Freeman sub-editorial (Terence Killeen); Beyond the façade - Uncovering the physical structure of No 7 Eccles Street (Ian Gunn)


Corrections to Printed Annotations

Number 17 - October 2021

Perhaps the most important publication for the centenary of Ulysses in 2022 was the Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses edited by Sam Slote, Marc A. Mamigonian, and John Turner, which represents the new benchmark for scholars trying to further elucidate the complexity of Joyce’s epic.

     In this eighteenth issue of James Joyce Online Notes we contribute a few further insights for this comprehensive and indispensable new handbook for readers of Ulysses. John Gordon helps us to elucidate a textual crux in the Cyclops episode, Vincent Deane familiarises us with Fletcherism and has discovered a new song alluded to in Ulysses. Harald Beck offers a mixed bag of short notes ranging from frozen music or a cod in the wrong pot to hot omelette on the posterior and points a judashand at a moonflower.

     This is hopefully sufficient for the day, but more will inevitably come to light.

Harald Beck and John Simpson


Joyce's People: Moses Golden

Joyce's Words: Comings and goings: Joyce’s words in the Oxford English Dictionary (September 2021 update)

Joyce's Allusions: A medley from Mickey Rooney's Macaronic Band

Joyce's Environs: Mad nun screeching: St Vincent’s Hospital as Joyce knew it; Captain Marshall's horse


Corrections to Printed Annotations