In her letter to her father in Calypso, Milly
reports that "all the beef to the heels were in" Mullingar—a
confusing phrase, since fair day
was the occasion for driving cattle to town, but she seems to
be referring to people. The expression is used widely in rural
Ireland for well-fed cattle; "Beef to the heels like a
Mullingar heifer" suggests livestock richly endowed with flesh
right down to the ground. But by association it also
frequently refers to well-off people, particularly women who
look like they haven't missed many meals. An odd assortment of
connotations results: appreciation of wealth (Milly's usage),
contempt for sexual unattractiveness (Bloom's in
Lestrygonians), desire for fullbodied womanhood
(Bannon's in Oxen of the Sun).
In Lestrygonians Bloom recalls Milly's letter while
gazing at a woman's stockinged calves on Grafton Street: "Thick
feet that woman has in the white stockings. Hope the rain
mucks them up on her. Countrybred chawbacon. All the beef to
the heels were in. Always gives a woman clumsy feet. Molly
looks out of plumb." In Nausicaa, Gerty's
attractively presented legs make him think back to women's
calves that he has perused earlier in the day, including the
pair on Grafton Street: "Transparent stockings,
stretched to breaking point. Not like that frump today. A.
E. Rumpled stockings. Or the one in Grafton street. White.
Wow! Beef to the heel."
In Oxen of the Sun, the phrase returns full circle
to Milly, when Bannon (whom Milly has mentioned in her letter)
shows up at the hospital with Mulligan and "would tell
him of a skittish heifer, big of her age and beef
to the heel." Here, the phrase seems to suggest
that Milly is well filled out for her tender age—a toothsome
morsel. Thornton reports that Fritz "Senn suggests, I think
correctly, that Milly has heard the phrase from her boy
friend."
The saying, then, not only crosses a species barrier but also
encompasses a sea of economic and sexual ambivalence. A 2013
Welsh exhibition of new paintings by Gordon Dalton titled
"Beef to the heel like a Mullingar heifer" offers the
following catalogue commentary on its title: "Irish derogatory
slang, but also means high quality. Gordon Dalton’s work, like
a backhanded compliment, has the same anxious contradictions"
(www.artswales.org.uk).
