It is not clear why, in any realistic sense, Mulligan should
bark the command, "Back to barracks!" Gifford
suggests that the suds in his shaving bowl are somehow similar
to soldiers who, having performed their morning parade, can be
dismissed from formation. But these suds have not yet
performed either of the tasks for which they were assembled:
becoming transubstantiated and shaving Mulligan’s
face.
In a personal communication, Tony Jones suggests another
possibility: "It is a humorous slang phrase in Ireland for
adjusting your underwear so that your genitals are back where
they belong." Just as a man among male friends may change his
position on a barstool and say, "That's the boys back in
the barracks!," Mulligan, who shortly afterward is seen
"gathering about his legs the loose folds of his gown," may be
commenting to Stephen on the uncomfortable arrangement his
boys have adopted. It seems strange that a man standing in a
loose dressing gown could be experiencing such discomfort, and
strange too that Buck would interrupt his priestly routine to
comment on it, but this reading feels at least as plausible as
Gifford's.
In any case, the question of confining soldiers to their
barracks, or not, would have been much on Dubliners' minds at
this time, when troops were free to roam the streets at night,
seeking sex and getting
involved in brawls. British soldiers were a fixture on
Dublin’s streets, and the city was encircled by barracks
housing large numbers of troops. Joyce makes repeated mention
of the sprawling "Portobello barracks" in the
south central suburb of Rathmines, the home of the two
soldiers who assault Stephen in Circe. It
accommodated large cavalry units. Cyclops mentions
the more centrally located "Linenhall barracks,"
a three-acre complex of buildings erected in the 1720s and
enlarged in the 1780s to promote the manufacture and trade of
Irish linen. By 1904 that enterprise had been moribund for a
century, and the buildings were sometimes used as barracks for
British troops.
In Hades Bloom thinks of how Rudy must have been
conceived "that morning in Raymond terrace she
was at the window watching the two dogs at it by the
wall of the cease to do evil. And the sergeant
grinning up." "Cease to do evil; learn to do well" was the
motto over the door of the Richmond Bridewell, a jail on the
South Circular Road that was given to the War Department in
the 1880s and 90s and expanded, becoming the Wellington
Barracks. These barracks, since 1922 called the Griffith
Barracks and devoted to other uses, lie across the South
Circular Road from Raymond Terrace.
There were many other such facilities. The Royal Barracks on Benburb
Street, on the north bank of the Liffey west of the Four
Courts, were the largest in the city. By 1735 they could house
five battalions (about 5,000 soldiers), and even more capacity
was added as time went on. The Richmond Barracks in Inchicore,
on the western edge of the city, could house 1,600 men. The
Beggars Bush Barracks were located on the southeastern edge of
the city, the Aldborough House
Barracks on the northeast. The Marlborough Barracks were in
Glasnevin, on the northwest edge of the city. There was also a
barracks near the Pigeon
House on the South Wall. In addition to all these
British soldiers, the Royal Irish Constabulary, whose
constables wore military-style uniforms, had a large barracks
near the Marlborough Barracks. They were run from Dublin Castle, the center
of imperial power in the city, and they had a large depot and
magazine in Phoenix Park, not far from the barracks.
More army barracks were scattered throughout the country,
many of them within easy reach of Dublin. Along the
Military Road, which was built through the Wicklow Mountains in the
years after the 1798 Rising
in order to deny insurgents hiding places in the hills, five
large barracks were constructed during the course of the 19th
century. Athlone, in the western part of County Westmeath about 75
miles from the capital, had another large garrison.
