Son of Rory

Parody. "Who comes through Michan's land, bedight in sable armour? O'Bloom, the son of Rory: it is he. Impervious to fear is Rory's son: he of the prudent soul": this brief paragraph shifts the historical focus from the ancient warriors of the previous parody to more recent Irish soldiers of the 16th or 17th century. Its mock-heroic comment that Bloom is "Impervious to fear" anticipates the pluck that he will show in entering Barney Kiernan's and crossing swords with the Citizen, and "prudent" echoes the mocking nickname which Joe Hynes has just applied to him.

Bloom is, of course, "bedight in sable armour" because he's wearing a black suit. The word "bedight" (arrayed, bedecked) evokes late medieval and early modern English: the OED documents one use in ca. 1400 and later ones in 1559 and 1598. "O'Bloom" too moves the temporal setting forward from Cú Chulainn's time. The prefix "Ó" (grandson or descendant of) was not used before the 10th century and it became common only in the 11th and 12th. After English rule was consolidated in the 17th century the prefix was often dropped, but it had a patriotic resurgence among 19th century families. It is not unreasonable to suppose that by giving his Jewish protagonist this kind of name Joyce was skewering Celtic Revival dreams of resuscitating the glorious past, just as he did in the previous Cyclops parody.

The name Rory suggests that he was thinking specifically of that time when Tudor and Stuart monarchs attempted to assert control over all of Ireland and subjugate the population with plantations awarded to Protestant loyalists. Either of two men with that name could have inspired the portrait of Bloom as a fighter who bravely enters the xenophobic lions' den of Barney Kiernan's. Rory Oge O'More (ca. 1544-1578), the Lord of Laois, resisted the efforts of two English queens to seize land in the midlands. Many dozens of his relatives and fellow chieftains were treacherously murdered at a feast thrown by the English in 1577, and he was hunted down and killed in the following year. His nephew Rory O'More, a.k.a. Sir Roger Moore (ca. 1600-ca. 1653), was a landowner in the same region who, with three other leaders, launched a coup d'état in 1641, attempting to seize Dublin Castle and overthrow the English regime. Informants betrayed the plot, but during the 1641-53 Confederate Wars that followed O'More fought on against the royalists with great success, reducing English possessions to Dublin, Drogheda, and Cork until the savagery of Oliver Cromwell turned the tide.

Gifford floats both names, while Slote, Mamigonian, and Turner declare for the nephew, apparently because O'Bloom is called "the son of Rory" and the younger O'More is "referred to as 'the son of Rory Caoch' in the Annals of Ireland." In fact, though, Roger was the grandson of Rory Caoch O'More. His uncle Rory Oge O'More was one of the old man's sons, so the expression applies better to him. The younger leader, however, was a knight (Joyce may be echoing this in "sable armour"), and his high ambition and considerable military success have endeared him to Irish nationalists. After independence, the bridge over the Liffey previously known as the Barrack Bridge or Bloody Bridge was renamed Rory O'More Bridge in his honor.

The word "prudent" is normally a compliment, but the intention appears distinctly mocking when Joe Hynes, exhibiting no gratitude for Bloom telling him that he can collect his pay and no inclination to repay Bloom the money he owes him, says, "'Twas the prudent member gave me the wheeze." The narrator of Cyclops later recalls this tag when Bloom politely declines to be treated to drinks, saying scornfully, "Gob, he's a prudent member and no mistake."

John Hunt 2025

Plate from John Derrick's The Image of Irelande (1581), with a description reading "Rorie Oge, a wild kerne and a defeated rebel, in the forest with wolves for company." Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Early 19th century engraving showing Sir Phelim O'Neill, one of the four leaders of the 1641 rebellion, as "Cheife Traytor of all Ireland," held in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The Rory O'More Bridge in Dublin, photographed in 2011 by YvonneM from the Frank Sherwin Bridge, with the James Joyce Bridge visible to the east. Source: Wikimedia Commons.