Old Tweedy

Molly Bloom's father, a man named "Tweedy," was an officer in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers stationed in "Gibraltar" during her infancy and youth. In Ithaca he is called "Major Brian Cooper Tweedy." According to Ellmann, Joyce based Tweedy on a Dubliner who called himself Major Powell but who in fact served only as a sergeant-major, an important non-commissioned or warrant officer. This ambiguity attaches to Tweedy in the novel.

John Hunt 2017

Troop Sergeant Major leading a charge on the Boer position at Laing's Nek on 25 January 1881, in the First Anglo-Boer War. Source: www.victorianwars.com.