<em>Dindsenchas</em>, Mr Deasy, and the nightmare of partition in <em>Ulysses</em>
Anne Marie D’Arcy
In creating the character of Garrett Deasy, James Joyce exploits significance his surname in dindsenchas tradition, unknown to Deasy himself, if not Stephen Dedalus. Drawing on divergent meanings Deisi according Henthorn Todd, Marie-Henri d’Arbois de Jubainville and Whitley Stokes, comments obliquely Deasy’s provenance politics. is an Ulsterman or necessarily Orangeman, as commonly assumed, but typical Dublin’s unionist bourgeoisie, representative older, Tory tradition southern unionism, growing progressively more enervated. By contrast, Stephen’s internal monologue, allied treatment ‘Circe’, point increasingly militant, separatist direction Ulster unionism leading up Great War partition. Although anti-Catholic, he anti-Semitic, due ignorance meaning name, fails see implicit irony loathing Jews a subject, fugitive, wandering people. Introduction That was influenced by medieval Irish toponymic lore has long been accepted critics, several whom invoke Seamus Heaney’s definition ‘poems tales which relate original place names constitute form mythological etymology’. Brendan O Hehir highlighted reference P.W. Joyce’s places ‘Gas from burner’. this satirical broadside 1912, excoriating Dublin * Author’s e-mail: amd13@leicester.ac.uk doi: 10.3318/PRIAC.2014.114.05 1 Heaney, ‘The sense place’, Preoccupations: selected prose 1968 1978 (London, 1980), 131. The precise usefully defined Proinsias Mac Cana, ‘Placenames mythology tradition’, Gordon W. MacLennan (ed.), Proceedings first North American congress Celtic studies (Ottawa, 1988), 319 41: 333, ‘a compound senchas ‘‘knowledge all that pertains earlier times’’, ‘‘history (in pre-modern mythopoeic sense)’’ dind ‘‘height’’, ‘‘hill’’, then ‘‘fortified hill, stronghold’’ ‘‘famous important place’’’. 2 Joyce, Poems shorter writings, ed. Richard Ellmann, A. Walton Litz John-Whittier Ferguson 1991), 105; citing origin history (3 vols, Dublin, 1869 1913). See Hehir, A Gaelic lexicon for Finnegans wake, glossary other works (Berkeley, 1967), x. Royal Academy Vol. 114C, 295 325 # 2014 This content downloaded 207.46.13.83 Fri, 13 May 2016 06:35:37 UTC All use subject http://about.jstor.org/terms printers publishers, ‘characterizes Dubliners kind modern urban analogue’ study. Given ‘the role topography localism Ulysses even marked’, Maria Tymoczko concludes ‘he aware ways own work fit into aspect literary tradition’. Peter Maguire maintains ‘may have favoured nationalism associated with appropriation dindshenchas’, ‘his demonstrate competence its technique’. During school student years, discussions toponymy onomastics featured regularly such nationalist publications United Irishman. However, founders study were unionists, most notably, whose work, like sister, Margaret, continued profound effect historiographic vision, common their friend, Samuel Ferguson. influence Stokes family palpable notes association ‘sinfintins’ (FW 624.18): ruined early church western slope Hill Howth at Sutton, ‘Stout Stokes’ 619.32) preparatory notebooks VI.B.47.49. Yet interest Stokes’s lexicographical goes back so-called Paris-Pola notebook entries 1903 04, lists edition hagiographies preserved fifteenth-century Book Lismore (Dublin, NLI MS. 36,639/02/A, 15v). probable source knowledge ninth-century vernacular hagiography, Bethu Brigte (‘Life Brigit’), deployed well likely stimulus Citizen’s 3 Tymoczko, CA, 1994), 291. 4 Maguire, ‘Finnegans wake historical memory’, Journal Modern Literature 22 (1999), 293 327: 309. 5 Ulysses, 236. 6 addition Thomas Hofheinz, invention (Cambridge, 1995), 75 8, Bodleian dindshencas’, Folklore (1892), 467 516, Edinburgh (1893), 471 97; Rennes Revue Celtique 15 (1894), 272 336, 418 84; 16 (1895), 31 83, 135 67, 269 312. 7 1984), cited parenthetically FW page line number. also wake’ Buffalo, Vincent Deane, Daniel Ferrer Geert Lernout (Turnhout, 2001 ), volume Margaret buried St Fintan’s graveyard, her mother father, physician Prof. William while there are memorial crosses Insular style erected brother, surgeon, Sir Stokes. 8 Leabharlann Naisiunta na hEireann: collection list no. 68: papers 2002, comp. Kenny 2002), 9; Luca Crispi, ‘A commentary National Library Ireland ‘‘early commonplace book’’: 1912 (MS. 36,639,/02/ A)’, Genetic Studies 9 (2009) (http://www.geneticjoycestudies.org/, last accessed 17 November 2013). Frank Callanan, ‘James Irishman: Paris 1902 3’, (2010), 51 103, identifies rural library’, Irishman, March 1903, 6, ‘An April 5. Anne Marie D’Arcy
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