—He’s in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is a contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks all over Dublin.
To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episode here.
This post is a part of an occasional series on the real people behind the characters in Ulysses.
Most of the links that come up in a Google search for “Oliver St John Gogarty” are for pubs, hostels, apartments etc. instead of the man himself. At €8 a pint, The Oliver St John Gogarty pub in Temple Bar allegedly serves the most expensive pint in Ireland, according the Irish Sun. However, I don’t think it is a fitting legacy for the man fictionalized by Joyce as Buck Mulligan.
Oliver St John Gogarty (pronounced like Sinjin Gogurt-y), was a notable figure in his own right – a surgeon, a poet and a politician. In Ulysses, he appears as Malachi “Buck” Mulligan – a joshing blasphemer and Stephen Dedalus’ main antagonist. Mulligan has a habit of showing up and making Stephen look foolish and injecting crass commentary into otherwise serious discussions, as in “Scylla and Charybdis” when Mulligan shows up at the National Library to add his two cents to Stephen’s Shakespeare theory. Joyce said of Mulligan, “He should begin to pull on the reader as the day goes on… to the extent that Buck Mulligan’s wit wears threadbare….” Personally, Mulligan doesn’t wear on my nerves, but he does come off as a bully and tormentor. The dynamic between Mulligan and Dedalus has its roots in Joyce’s complex, real-life relationship with Gogarty.
Blooms & Barnacles 