Ulysses Characters

Almidano Artifoni is Stephen Dedalus’s Italian voice teacher, who is named for the director of the school where James Joyce taught English in Trieste, Italy. In “Wandering Rocks,” he encourages Stephen Dedalus to pursue a career in music.

Alec Bannon is Buck Mulligan’s friend, who has recently started dating Milly Bloom. In “Oxen of the Sun,” he and Buck meet their medical student friends, Stephen Dedalus, and Leopold Bloom at the Holles Street maternity hospital. Bannon eventually realizes that Bloom is his girlfriend’s father.

Beaufoy is a fictional Dublin writer who wrote “Matcham’s Masterstroke,” a mediocre short story that won a prize in Titbits magazine. In “Calypso,” Leopold Bloom reads the story in the outhouse and envies Beaufoy’s success.

Richard Best is one of the three librarians who listens to Stephen Dedalus’s theory about Shakespeare in “Scylla and Charybdis,” along with William Lyster and John Eglinton.

Ellen Bloom is Leopold Bloom’s mother, who appears in a flashback from the “Circe” episode to scold her son for coming home covered in mud.

Milly is Leopold and Molly Bloom’s fifteen-year-old daughter, who has recently left home to study photography in the city of Mullingar. She writes her parents a letter mentioning a boy named Bannon, which leads both of her parents to speculate about her coming sexual awakening.

Edy Boardman is Gerty MacDowell and Cissy Caffrey’s friend, who spends the afternoon with them on Sandymount Strand in “Nausicaa.” She also brings her baby brother along. Edy is much more reserved and conservative than Cissy, and she seems to be angry at Gerty about something.

Denis Breen is Josie Breen’s mentally unstable husband who spends the day of June 16 obsessively seeking to hire a lawyer, figure out who sent him a postcard reading “U.P.,” and sue the sender for libel. Throughout the novel, many Dubliners make fun of him and his pointless crusade.

Bushe is the famous lawyer who defended Samuel Childs in the Childs murder case.

Davy Byrne owns the pub where Bloom has lunch in “Lestrygonians.”

Jacky is Cissy Caffrey’s younger brother and Tommy Caffrey’s twin.

Tommy is Cissy Caffrey’s younger brother and Jacky Caffrey’s twin.

A nurse at the Holles Street Maternity Hospital and an acquaintance of Leopold Bloom, Nurse Callan repeatedly tells the medical students to be quiet out of respect to Mrs. Purefoy.

Father Coffey is the priest who presides over funerals in Prospect Cemetery, including Paddy Dignam’s. Bloom imagines that his life must be dreadfully boring, since he repeats the same ceremony every day.

Private Compton is Private Carr’s comparatively level-headed companion.

Conmee is the priest whose diagonal journey across Dublin serves as the opening scene to “Wandering Rocks.” However, he is far more significant because of his role in Joyce’s earlier A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: he was the sympathetic rector at young Stephen Dedalus’s school.

Father Conroy is the priest who performs mass at the church near Sandymount Strand in “Nausicaa.”

John Corley is Stephen Dedalus’s old friend, who manages to borrow money from him in “Eumaeus.” The Dubliners story “Two Gallants” focuses on his and Lenehan’s attempts to seduce and steal money from women.

Punch Costello is the drunkest and most disrespectful of the partygoers in “Oxen of the Sun.” Leopold Bloom disdains him for repeatedly interrupting Mrs. Purefoy’s labor by singing drinking songs. The novel reveals that Punch is the good-for-nothing son of a privileged public servant.

The fast-talking, vulgar editor of the Evening Telegraph, Crawford rudely ignores Leopold Bloom and tries to convince Stephen Dedalus to publish something in his paper in “Aeolus.”

One of the partygoers in “Oxen of the Sun,” Crotthers largely fades into the background (except while he speculates about whether Theodore Purefoy is still capable of fathering children).

Mrs. Cunningham is Martin Cunningham’s wife, who is an alcoholic.

Miriam Dandrade is a woman who once sold Leopold Bloom her used underwear.

Bartell d’Arcy is a tenor who once worked with Molly Bloom and kissed her after a rehearsal.

Dan Dawson is a local baker and politician who gave a passionate (and unnecessarily elaborate) patriotic speech the night before the events of Ulysses.

May Goulding Dedalus is Stephen Dedalus’s mother, who died just under a year before the events of Ulysses. Stephen feels guilty about failing to pray by her deathbed, and she repeatedly comes back to him in dreams and visions throughout the novel (most significantly in “Circe”).

Boody Dedalus is one of Stephen Dedalus’s sisters.

Katey is one of Stephen Dedalus’s sisters.

Maggy is one of Stephen Dedalus’s sisters.

Dignam was an alcoholic Dubliner who died suddenly a few days before the events of Ulysses. His funeral is central to the “Hades” episode, and the novel’s characters repeatedly lament his passing and worry about how his wife and children will survive.

Patrick is Paddy Dignam’s young son, who struggles to process his father’s death. Martin Cunningham leads a fundraising effort to support the young boy and his family.

Mrs. Dignam is Paddy Dignam’s long-suffering wife.

A Hungarian Jewish butcher who—ironically enough—runs a pork shop in Dublin. Despite their shared heritage, Leopold Bloom avoids looking at or chatting with Dlugacz when he visits his shop to buy a pork kidney in “Calypso.”

A popular singer with a “booming” bass voice, Ben Dollard sings “The Croppy Boy” during the climax scene in the “Sirens” episode.

In “Sirens,” Lydia Douce is one of the barmaids who works at the Ormond Hotel, along with Mina Kennedy. The women joke together before the bar opens, compete for Blazes Boylan’s attention when he walks in, and later ward off drunk men’s insistent sexual advances.

John Alexander Dowie is an American preacher who is coming to preach in Dublin. He is the subject of the “Elijah is coming” pamphlet that Bloom receives at the beginning of “Lestrygonians,” and in “Circe,” he briefly appears with his name reversed (as “Alexander J. Dowie”).

Mary Driscoll is Leopold and Molly Bloom’s former serving-girl. After Leopold tried to seduce Mary, Molly accused her of stealing oysters and fired her. She appears in the “Circe” episode to formally accuse Bloom of harassing her.

Kevin Egan is an Irish expatriate and nationalist whom Stephen Dedalus met in Paris. Stephen remembers him as lonely and miserable, even though his son Patrice also lived in Paris.

Patrice Egan is a young Irish socialist who lives as an exile in Paris, along with his father Kevin Egan.

Eglinton, who is also occasionally called Magee, is a librarian at the National Library, where he works alongside Best and Lyster. Of the three librarians, he is the most forceful and unapologetic critic of Stephen Dedalus’s convoluted theory about Shakespeare.

Falkiner is a prominent judge.

Fanning is Dublin’s sub-sheriff.

Cashel is a well-known, eccentric, monocle-wearing Dubliner who often walks around town carrying a stick, umbrella, and dust coat.

Mrs. Fleming is Leopold and Molly Bloom’s inept, elderly housekeeper.

Nosey Flynn is a minor Dublin character who always hangs out in the same corner of Davy Byrne’s bar and, as his name suggests, likes to ask other people annoying, unwanted questions. He asks Leopold Bloom about Molly, Davy Byrne about the horseraces, and Tom Rochford about his invention.

Lieutenant Gardner was Molly Bloom’s second girlhood love interest in Gibraltar, after Lieutenant Mulvey. He died in the Boer War.

Garryowen is the citizen’s vicious, unkempt dog who is constantly on the brink of attacking the men in Barney Kiernan’s pub during the “Cyclops” episode. In “Nausicaa,” readers learn that his real owner is actually Gerty MacDowell’s grandfather, Giltrap.

Goodwin is Molly Bloom’s elderly former piano teacher who had some kind of romantic relationship with her.

The sickly lawyer and eccentric opera lover Richie Goulding is Stephen Dedalus’s uncle (his mother May’s brother). Simon Dedalus despises him, and Bloom pretends to be meeting him so that he can enter the Ormond Hotel bar and spy on Blazes Boylan in “Sirens.”

Sara Goulding is Richie Goulding’s wife and Stephen Dedalus’s aunt.

Gumley is an alcoholic night watchman who sleeps through his shift. He’s a friend of Simon Dedalus.

Ann Hathaway was William Shakespeare’s wife. Very little is known about her, and Stephen Dedalus develops a complex theory about her and Shakespeare’s relationship in the “Scylla and Charybdis” episode.

Hornblower is a porter at Dublin’s Trinity College.

Georgina Johnson is a prostitute whom Stephen Dedalus frequently visits in nighttown. He looks for her during “Circe” but learns that she married someone named Mr. Lambe and moved to London.

Bridie Kelly is the prostitute with whom Bloom lost his virginity.

In “Sirens,” Mina Kennedy is a golden-haired barmaid who works at the Ormond Hotel. She and her bronze-haired counterpart Lydia Douce fight off obnoxious men’s advances while fighting for Blazes Boylan’s attention.

Keyes is a “tea, wine and spirit merchant” who hires Bloom to run his advertisement in the Freeman newspaper.

Lidwell is a solicitor who flirts with Lydia Douce in the Ormond Hotel bar.

Rev. Love is a Protestant clergyman who tours St. Mary’s Abbey with Ned Lambert. He is also Father Cowley’s landlord—which is a metaphor for British Protestant rule over Irish Catholics—and he is writing a book about the Fitzgerald family.

Lyster is an inquisitive Quaker librarian at the National Library who politely listens to Stephen Dedalus’s theory about Shakespeare in “Scylla and Charybdis.”

Madden is one of the medical students who appear in “Oxen of the Sun.”

Maginni is a flamboyant Dublin dancing professor.

The soldier Lieutenant Mulvey was Molly Bloom’s first love in Gibraltar, but their relationship was cut short when he suddenly had to sail off to India.

John O’Connell is the caretaker of Prospect Cemetery, where Paddy Dignam is buried during “Hades.”

Father O’Hanlon is a priest who conducts mass at the church near Sandymount Strand with Father Conroy.

Terry O’Ryan is the barman at Barney Kiernan’s.

Kitty O’Shea was an English aristocrat whose long affair with Charles Stewart Parnell went public, ruined Parnell’s reputation, and arguably delayed Ireland’s independence.

The Irish Nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell’s older brother John carried on his legacy after his death, held minor political office, and occasionally appears around Dublin in Ulysses.

Pat is the bald waiter at the Ormond Hotel.

Theodore Purefoy is Mrs. Purefoy’s husband, who the medical students at the Holles Street hospital think is too old to be the father of her child.

Nurse Quigley is a nurse at the maternity hospital on Holles Street.

Along with Zoe Higgins and Florry Talbot, Kitty Ricketts is one of the three prostitutes who works in Bella Cohen’s brothel. She is thin and pale, and Lipoti Virag notices that she seems depressed. She runs off with Vincent Lynch at the end of “Circe.”

Tom Rochford is an ambitious Dubliner who invents a machine that displays who is onstage during a variety show, and he also once saved a man who fell into a sewer (which is a true story).

Rumbold is a barber who applies for a job as a hangman in Dublin and later shows up and prepares to execute Bloom in “Circe.”

Sceptre is a horse who is favored to win the Ascot Gold Cup race but then loses to Throwaway. Madden, Lenehan, and Blazes Boylan all lose money by betting on Sceptre.

Shakespeare is the famous English playwright, poet, and actor who is the subject of Stephen Dedalus’s complicated, improbable theories in “Scylla and Charybdis.”

Georgina Simpson hosted the party where Leopold Bloom met Molly Tweedy.

Taylor is a genius Dublin lawyer whom Professor MacHugh praises for giving a brilliant patriotic speech about reviving the Irish language.

Throwaway is the underdog horse who pulls ahead of Sceptre to win the Ascot Gold Cup. (This arguably represents the underdog anti-hero Leopold Bloom defeating the intrepid seducer Blazes Boylan to win Molly Bloom’s love.)

Molly Bloom’s father was a successful soldier who spent much of his career stationed in Gibraltar. Leopold Bloom greatly admires “old Tweedy,” but the novel repeatedly questions his actual rank in the military.

Gerty MacDowell’s love interest, Reggy Wylie is a boy who once kissed her on the nose at a party and sometimes rides his bicycle by her window.

The blind “stripling” (young man) never speaks in the book, but he turns up in three different scenes: Bloom helps him cross the street in “Lestrygonians,” he walks through Dublin in “Wandering Rocks,” and he goes to the Ormond Hotel to retrieve his tuning fork in “Sirens.”

This is Edy Boardman’s younger brother, who plays with Cissy Caffrey in “Nausicaa.”

The old bawd is an ugly, elderly prostitute in nighttown. She tries to get Bloom’s attention and set him up with a younger woman in “Circe.”

A gruff beggar sings a patriotic English song in “Wandering Rocks,” and Molly Bloom tosses him a coin through the window.

This narrator is a working-class Dublin debt collector who describes the fight between Bloom and the citizen in Barney Kiernan’s bar.

In “Circe,” the navy is a construction worker who steals a lamppost.

The nymph is a figure from a picture that Bloom cut out of a smutty magazine and framed on the wall next to his bed. She comes to life in “Circe” and reminds him about all his sins and sexual improprieties.

This is an elderly woman whom Stephen Dedalus hallucinates about meeting in “Circe.” She represents an exaggerated stereotype of poor rural Irish nationalism, and she resembles the milkmaid who delivers Stephen, Buck Mulligan, and Haines’s milk in the opening episode.