Bloom thinks three times of a chain of barber shops called
"Drago's." The business was an actual one, as is almost always
the case in Ulysses, and the proprietors did have that
name. Adolphe Drago committed suicide in 1897, and in 1904 the
shops were owned and operated by his widow. Neither spouse
figures in the novel.
In Lestrygonians, as he is taking a brief jog down
Dawson Street to get from Duke Street to Molesworth Street on
his way to the National Museum and Library, Bloom sees a "dyeworks'
shopvan drawn up before Drago's." The 1904 Thom's
Directory lists an "Adolphe Drago, Parisian perfumer and
hairdresser," at 17 Dawson Street, as both Gifford and Slote
observe. Slote notes also that the directory lists a second
establishment at 36 Henry Street, a block or two northwest of
the General Post Office on Sackville Street. There is evidence
(details in a moment) that the Drago family lived above the
Henry Street shop. Other evidence indicates that there was a
third Drago business at 29 Eden Quay, two blocks east of
Sackville Street on the north bank of the Liffey. When Bloom
thinks in Calypso of "Drago's shopbell ringing,"
and when he recalls in Sirens that "the barber in
Drago's always looked my face when I spoke his face in the
glass" (because seeing someone's face makes it easier to
understand their words), he could be thinking of any of these
three establishments, or more than one.
But the Drago references involve an additional complication.
Slote observes that Thom's lists the proprietor of the
shops on Dawson Street and Henry Street as "Mrs Drago,
wigmaker and hairdresser" (p. 1857). He does not speculate
about the disparity between linking the two shops to "Adolphe
Drago" and identifying the proprietor as "Mrs Drago," but that
apparent contradiction can now be explained. Little was known
about the Dragos until recently––Vivien Igoe does not mention
them––but this year Senan Molony and Vincent Altman O'Connor
have uncovered pertinent information. In the Glasnevin
cemetery they have found a monument whose inscription reads,
In memory of my beloved
husband
Adolphe Drago, 36 Henry St..
Who died 9 August 1897 aged 40 years,
a kind and loving husband,
good father and a just man.
Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on his soul.
Also their dear son John Francis
Drago
who died 25 Feb. 1926.
Rest in peace.
Drago lived on Henry Street, then, and he died in 1897.
Contemporary documents identify the cause of death. The
coroner's official death certificate attributes it to "Suicide
by shooting thro' head with shot gun. Insane." An article in
the Irish Independent of August 11 goes into more
lurid detail, reporting that Drago died by "blowing out his
brains" and noting that "Mr Drago's head was practically blown
off." The article presents the coroner's finding that Drago's
"mental condition had been very much deranged." His widow
testified that "For some time past he was fretting over a
matter of business, and was sad and disposed to be melancholy
and nervous. Dr M'Ardle had attended him up to about three
weeks ago."
Neither spouse figures even slightly in Ulysses,
unless "the barber in Drago's" whom Bloom remembers was
Adolphe himself––and there is little reason to think that,
since Bloom speaks of him so impersonally and never mentions
him again. However, the Dragos' known biographical details do
hold interest in relation to themes explored elsewhere in the
novel. Mrs. Drago's proprietorship (the description of her as
"wigmaker and hairdresser" suggests that she was no mere
adjunct to her husband) allies her with other enterprising
Dublin businesswomen like "John
Wyse Nolan's wife." Her husband's struggles with mental
illness connect him to figures who seem to have a tenuous grip
on sanity, like Dennis Breen and Cashel Boyle O’Connor
Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell. His suicide in response to
chronic depression links him with Bloom's father.
Finally, records in the Irish Jewish Genealogical Society
show that the Drago family were of Jewish descent. Bloom's
patronage of Drago's shop coheres with the way he seeks out
other Jewish merchants like Dlugazc
the butcher and Mesias the taylor. Although his father's
marriage to a Catholic woman, and his own, have engendered
separation from the tight Jewish community in south Dublin,
Bloom continues to circle back to his ethnic origins in a
spirit of curiosity, solidarity, and perhaps guilt.
