Leaning on the "parapet"
that surrounds the roof of the tower, Stephen looks down on
"the mailboat clearing the harbourmouth of Kingstown." Later,
Haines looks over the bay, "empty save for the smokeplume of
the mailboat vague on the bright skyline." The mailboats were
oceangoing ships that carried the mail between Ireland and
Wales twice every day. Later in the novel, we learn that Joseph Patrick Nannetti is
taking the mailboat on June 16, to catch a train to London.
The ships departed from Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) at 8:15
AM and 8:15 PM every day. When Stephen sees one passing the
harbormouth, the time must be about 8:20 AM. Receiving the
day's mail by express rail cars from Dublin, the mailboats
carried it to the port of Holyhead in northwest Wales, where
trains carried it to London and other parts of England.
In Cyclops, Bloom learns from Joe Hynes that
Nannetti, the newspaper printer and M.P., will shortly be "going
off by the mailboat" to ask questions the next day
about an action pending in the Parliament at Westminster. In Nausicaa
he thinks, "Nannetti's gone. Mailboat. Near Holyhead
by now." Gifford notes that "the run to
Holyhead...took about two and a half hours in 1904," but it
does not seem possible that nearly so much time has elapsed
since the boat's departure at 8:15 PM, so Bloom's estimate may
be mistaken. Gifford also notes that, according to the Evening
Telegraph, the actual Nannetti raised his
questions in Parliament on June 16, not June 17.
