Decoding Bloom: John Howard Parnell

This is a post in a series called Decoding Bloom where I take a paragraph of Ulysses and break it down line by line.

The passage below comes from “The Lestrygonians”, the eighth episode of Ulysses. It appears on page 164-165 in my copy (1990 Vintage International). It begins “Provost’s house” and ends “house of commons by the arm.”

As Leopold Bloom passes into Dublin’s famous Grafton St. on his long walk to lunch in “Lestrygonians”, Ulysses’ eighth episode, he has a momentary brush with celebrity - Charles Stewart Parnell’s brother John Howard Parnell crosses his path! What follows is a torrent of names that might be hard to decipher for those of us in the wrong century. Let’s untangle Bloom’s political musing on the Parnell family and beyond:

“Provost’s house. The reverend Dr Salmon: tinned salmon. Well tinned in there. Like a mortuary chapel. Wouldn’t live in it if they paid me. Hope they have liver and bacon today. Nature abhors a vacuum.”

Bloom passes by the Trinity College Provost’s house behind its high, foreboding gates. Its architectural style doesn’t suit Bloom, and he doesn’t miss a chance to make a silly dad joke about the reverend Dr George Salmon, Trinity’s erstwhile provost.

Trinity College Provost's House, November 2023

Dr Salmon is rightly remembered as an accomplished mathematician and theologian. In fact, Trinity thinks he’s so great that he has a statue inside the quadrangle that tourists frequently visit. James Joyce scholar Robert Adams lamented in his book Surface and Symbol that Dr Salmon is unfairly lampooned in Ulysses, with the reverend doctor’s extensive scholarly career totally ignored in favor of a dumb joke about his name. Furthermore, Adams stated, Salmon was reasonably liberal, while his successor, Anthony Traill, was far more worthy of the Artist’s ire and ridicule.

Imagine my shock and surprise to learn that the reverend doctor’s fervently believed that women would only be admitted into Trinity over his dead body, which is precisely what happened in 1904. Salmon’s meat was potted on 22 January 1904, which was also when women were permitted to attend lectures for the first time on Trinity’s campus. It seems the universe called his bluff. In my opinion, Dr. Salmon seems well-suited to being immortalized in Ulysses as nothing more than a fancy dude with a silly name who lived in an ugly house.

“The sun freed itself slowly and lit glints of light among the silverware opposite in Walter Sexton’s window by which John Howard Parnell passed, unseeing.
There he is: the brother. Image of him. Haunting face. Now that’s a coincidence. Course hundreds of times you think of a person and don’t meet him. Like a man walking in his sleep. No-one knows him.”

Much like in “Calypso”, Bloom falls momentarily into gloomy despair, oppressed by the shadow of a passing cloud. This time, instead of being delivered by a vision of a young girl, he snaps out of it when he spots John Howard Parnell in the wild. John Howard was the older brother of legendary Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell. Whereas Charles Stewart is often likened to Christ or Moses in Ulysses, John Howard is portrayed as a dreamy wraith floating through the city centre.

John Howard did look strikingly like his more famous brother, but that is where the similarities end in their biographies. In the late 1860’s, John Howard bought a plantation on the Alabama side of the Alabama-Georgia border and grew peaches and other fruit into the mid-1880’s. Charles Stewart visited him once and was horrified with the weather, the food and life in the American South, including the Black farm workers his brother had hired. In an article on the Encyclopedia of Alabama, scholar John D. Fair wrote:

“It was ironic that the man who would later champion the peasants of his homeland had scant appreciation for the culture of the lower classes recently emancipated enslaved people on the farm.”

John Howard returned to Ireland after his fruit growing venture collapsed. After his brother’s death, he inherited the family estate Avondale near Rathdrum, Co. Wicklow. Charles Stewart had wanted Avondale to pass to his partner Katherine O’Shea, but his wishes were not honored by the family. Avondale was heavily mortgaged when John Howard inherited it, and he sold it a year later, unable to afford the debt attached to the property.

“Must be a corporation meeting today. They say he never put on the city marshal’s uniform since he got the job. Charley Boulger used to come out on his high horse, cocked hat, puffed, powdered and shaved.”

In 1904, John Howard was Dublin’s city marshal. Though the city marshal was technically an elected position, it was functionally a position held for life. It was seen as an honorable sinecure for a retired politician or other prominent citizen who didn’t have much else going on. This was the case for John Howard, who held the office from 1900 until his death in 1923. The city marshal had few official duties. He was registrar of the city’s pawnbrokers and performed a few other minor duties, such as attending meetings of the city government, which Bloom assumes has drawn John Howard into the city today.

“Charley Boulger” is a pseudonym for the previous city marshal called “Charley Kavanagh.” His real name was used in the Little Review version of Ulysses, but was changed in later iterations. I don’t know why he changed the name, but given the trouble the BBC ran into with Ulysses’ portrayal of Reuben J. Dodd, I wonder if Charley Kavanagh had litigious descendants as well.

“Look at the woebegone walk of him. Eaten a bad egg. Poached eyes on ghost. I have a pain. Great man’s brother: his brother’s brother. He’d look nice on the city charger. Drop into the D.B.C. probably for his coffee, play chess there. His brother used men as pawns.”

If you’ve read ahead, you know that Mulligan and Haines spot John Howard in the D.B.C. (Dublin Bread Company) playing chess in “Wandering Rocks”, so Bloom is right on the money. Bloom refers to the “debating societies” in the “Dublin Bread Company’s tearoom” a few paragraphs before this encounter, but men more commonly met in the smoking room of the nearby Dame St. location of the D.B.C. for chess, coffee and conversation.

John Howard’s palpable malaise here matches his real life temperament. Bloom calls him “his brother’s brother”, which to me implies that John Howard’s burden is living in his brother’s shadow and yet being unable to achieve his brother’s legendary status. This is partially true but not quite right. I think John Howard would have been perfectly content to be perfectly unremarkable. But because of his brother’s fame, he felt pushed into the public spotlight, specifically into politics like many of his family members.

More to the point, John Howard needed money and leveraged his name into an anemic political career. John Howard ran and came in last place in two elections in his native Wicklow. He finally narrowly won in South Meath in 1895, serving as an M.P. until 1900. During his tenure in Parliament, John Howard never spoke in chambers and was known for being far more interested in playing chess than governing. He didn’t win re-election, but clearly maintained his love of chess over government upon returning to Dublin.

“Let them all go to pot. Afraid to pass a remark on him. Freeze them up with that eye of his. That’s the fascination: the name. All a bit touched. Mad Fanny and his other sister Mrs Dickinson driving about with scarlet harness. Bolt upright like surgeon M’Ardle.”

Bloom’s thoughts turn to other Parnell family members. I don’t think it’s fair at all to describe them as “all a bit touched,” though he is correct about the power of the name “Parnell” in Irish politics of the era. An analogy can be drawn between the Parnells of the late 19th century and the Kennedys of mid-20th century American politics, both with a legacy of high achievement and tragedy. The Parnells were a large family, 11 siblings in all, 5 brothers and 6 sisters. Their mother was an American, Delia Tudor Parnell (née Stewart), who descended from those Tudors and the daughter of famed Adm. Charles Stewart, who commanded the USS Constitution in the War of 1812, among other naval accomplishments. Like the Kennedys, some of the Parnell siblings went on to political fame, while others ended up on the Grey Gardens end of the spectrum.

Bloom mentions two Parnell sisters in this passage. Let’s start with “Mrs Dickinson,” who was born Emily Parnell, Charles Stewart Parnell’s older sister. Emily was disinherited by her father early in life due to his disapproval of her marriage to Captain Arthur Dickinson, who he thought was too wild. Emily was more politically conservative than other Parnell family members and didn’t share their nationalistic politics, which sometimes caused her social embarrassment. She wrote a book called A Patriot’s Mistake about her family, though it is not particularly well-regarded. Sadly, Emily died destitute in a workhouse in 1918. The family had money she could have drawn on in desperate circumstances, but it is unknown why she ended up so alone at the end of her life.

“Mad Fanny” is Fanny Parnell, younger sister to Charles Stewart Parnell. “Mad Fanny” is a completely unfair and misogynistic nickname. While I can’t say for sure if it’s a Joycean coinage, I never encountered it anywhere in my research except in this passage of Ulysses. Joyce could be quite misogynistic (see also: Lizzie Twigg) and incredibly petty in his portrayal of contemporaries he didn’t like. Fanny was a radical nationalist female poet, which could have been enough to raise Joyce’s hackles (and by extension, Bloom’s). Fanny fundraised actively for the Ladies’ Land League and wrote political poetry in support of Irish nationalism until her sudden death at the age of 33.

Joyce additionally insults by total omission Anna Parnell, another politically active Parnell sister. Anna ran the Ladies’ Land League in the late 1800’s while many male members of the Land League, including her famous brother, were in jail. Anna is remembered as a fearless leader who allocated thousands of pounds of aid to evicted tenant farmers during her tenure as leader. Anna and the Ladies’ Land League were under constant threat of police violence and jail time, but carried out their duties to the disenfranchised nonetheless. When the male leaders were released from jail, they attempted to curtail the Ladies’ activism. There was pushback from the women, and in the end, Anna was removed from leadership, a move supported by Charles Stewart Parnell. Anna never spoke to her brother again. This betrayal, combined with the sudden death of Fanny, lead to a physical and emotional breakdown.

Anna spent much of her later years living in various parts of England under pseudonyms. She died in an accidental drowning in 1911 at age 59. Honestly, it’s probably better that Anna’s name isn’t immortalized as some childish insult in Ulysses. Her contributions were recognized by the city of Dublin in 2021 when a blue plaque was erected at 39 Upper O’Connell St. where the offices of the Ladies’ Land League were once located.

One final note: “surgeon M’Ardle” is Dr. John S. M’Ardle, who was a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and a surgeon at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin. He used to ride around Dublin in his carriage with a distinctive, upright posture. That is all.

“Still David Sheehy beat him for south Meath.”

David Sheehy did indeed defeat John Howard Parnell for the seat in South Meath in 1903. Keen readers will recall his name from the scene in “Wandering Rocks” where Fr. Conmee meets Sheehy’s wife:

“Father Conmee was very glad to see the wife of Mr David Sheehy M.P. Iooking so well and he begged to be remembered to Mr David Sheehy M.P. Yes, he would certainly call.”

Her name was Bessie, by the way, so we don’t need to refer to her by her husband’s name. By all accounts, she was a nice person. In any case, Mr. Bessie Sheehy M.P. held his seat until 1918. The Sheehys were family friends of the Joyces, so James would have known them all well. Their daughter Hanna married Francis Sheehy Skeffington, who took his wife’s name in a show of egalitarianism (#notallmen, I guess). Sheehy Skeffington, a friend and supporter of Joyce, died in the 1916 uprising. Daughter Kathleen Sheehy was another ardent nationalist and is believed to be the model for the nationalistic Miss Ivors in “The Dead”. She was also the mother of Irish politician Conor Cruise O’Brien. Finally, yet another daughter, Mary Sheehy, was a longtime, unrequited love of Joyce’s in his youth. Mary went on to marry writer and politician Tom Kettle.

“Apply for the Chiltern Hundreds and retire into public life.”

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary delightfully defines the Chiltern Hundreds as “a nominal appointment granted by the British crown that serves as a legal fiction to enable a member of Parliament to relinquish his or her seat.”
In the UK, an MP cannot resign unless they die or are disqualified from holding the seat. One way to become disqualified is to apply to become the Steward of Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds, unpaid positions with no duties attached. John Howard Parnell’s sinecure as city marshal is a little more laborious than this position, but perhaps he could consider it if he feels overworked.

“The patriot’s banquet. Eating orangepeels in the park.”

At rallies in the Phoenix Park, apparently Irish nationalists ate oranges as a way to symbolically annoy the Orangemen. No word on whether or not this was an effective strategy to annoy right wing reactionaries but definitely a great method to prevent scurvy.

“Simon Dedalus said when they put him in parliament that Parnell would come back from the grave and lead him out of the house of commons by the arm.”

Simon might not be far off the mark here. John Howard claimed in a biography he wrote about his brother that Charles Stewart visited him from beyond the grave in 1897. There’s no indication if he tried to dissuade John Howard from his lackluster parliamentary career. Living Charles Stewart encouraged his older brother to stand for all those lost elections, so perhaps he was just as encouraging in the next life. Only John Howard could say for sure.

While John Howard is mostly forgotten in his native Ireland, he is warmly remembered in Alabama for his humanitarian efforts there. Some even believe John Howard to have been the first person to cultivate peaches in the South, though Fair says this is a local myth. However, he goes on to detail how John Howard invested a lot of money in the community and was generous in times of tragedy. In one instance, when a local cotton mill burned down, John Howard offered the workers employment and temporary housing on his farm. He went on to invest thousands more into the local community. His old farm was renamed the John Parnell Memorial Park in 2001.

Decoding Bloom: John Howard Parnell

Further Reading:

Weggebobbles and Fruit: Vegetarianism in Ulysses

Up the Boers!