J.J. O’Molloy
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The Most Historic Spot in All Dublin
“History in ‘Wandering Rocks’ is not only colonial history registered in the fabric of the city; it is also quite specifically colonial history distorted and dominated by Protestant and Anglo-Irish interpretations.” – Len Platt The eighth section of Ulysses’ tenth episode, “Wandering Rocks” opens with “two pink faces” greeting a third in some dark, dusty…
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Ep. 129 – DEAR DIRTY DUBLIN
What if we held hands in the Akasic Record? Topics in this episode include too much information about the Freemasons, entering the Promised Land, Daniel O’Connell’s mass meeting at Mullaghmast, political radicalism, the Akasic Record, Stephen’s magic powers, rebutting John F. Taylor, Parnell’s parliamentary finesse, argumentum ad pasiones, leaning into your own bias, the origin…
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Ep. 126 – ITALIA, MAGISTRA ARTIUM
Sufficient for the day is the newspaper thereof. Topics in this episode include Grattan and Flood, Seymour Bushe and the Childs murder case, Hamlet references, Michelangelo’s Moses and where to find it, Lenehan’s cigarette scheme, J.J. O’Molloy’s love of forensic rhetoric, the shortcomings of memoria, court cases appearing in the works of Joyce, Samuel Childs…
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Ep. 116 – ERIN, GREEN GEM OF THE SILVER SEA
Inspired by your beauty…effulgent. Topics in this episode include lemon soap, Ned Lambert, Wilson Ruttledge, Hedges Eyre Chatterton, waiting for your rich uncle to die, Dan Dawson and “Our Lovely Land,” Aristotle’s Rhetoric, epideictic speeches, encomia for Helen, what Dan Dawson’s speech has in common with classical rhetorical treatises, making fun of subpar art, masturbatory…
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The Language of the Outlaw: John F. Taylor’s Speech in “Aeolus”
“But though the Irish are eloquent, a revolution is not made of human breath and compromises.” – James Joyce, “Ireland, Island of saints and Sages”, 1907 To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episode here and here. In the closing pages of “Aeolus,” Ulysses’ seventh episode, the men gathered in…
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Decoding Dedalus: The Opal Hush Poets
“The first spectre of the new generation has appeared. His name is Joyce. I have suffered from him and I would like you to suffer.” – Æ to W.B. Yeats, 1902 This is a post in a series called Decoding Dedalus where I take a passage of Ulysses and break it down line by line.…
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A POLISHED PERIOD
“—He spoke on the law of evidence, J. J. O’Molloy said, of Roman justice as contrasted with the earlier Mosaic code, the lex talionis. And he cited the Moses of Michelangelo in the vatican.” To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episode here. In Ulysses’ seventh episode, “Aeolus”, Evening Telegraph…
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Leopold Bloom in the House of Habsburg
“That archduke Leopold was it no yes or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs? – Leopold Bloom” To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episode here. Midway through “Aeolus,” Ulysses’ seventh episode, Stephen Dedalus re-enters the story just as Leopold Bloom steps out, like two ships passing in the…
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A Cloacal Obsession
“Mr. James Joyce is apparently afflicted with a shameful mania, but, as his works are but little read by sane folk, we say nothing of him.” – Eoin Ua Mathghamhna, 1924 To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episode here. About midway through “Aeolus,” Ulysses’ seventh episode, Leopold Bloom has…
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MEMORABLE BATTLES RECALLED: The Sham Squire and the Boys of Wexford
“… it would be a shrewd dialectician indeed who would make much sense out of the editor’s crowings about North Cork militia with Spanish officers in Ohio.” – Robert M. Adams To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episodes here and here. The nightmare of history is woven throughout “Aeolus,”…