Synopsis by Gerry O'Flaherty

Stephen is teaching history and poetry in a school in Dalkey, which is about a mile south of Sandycove. He has little interest in or control over his pupils because of his inferior position in the school and the substantial fees their parents pay. Lessons end at ten o'clock when there is a hockey match. Mr Deasy, the headmaster, then pays Stephen his very modest wages. Stephen promises to use his influence with two editors to have Mr Deasy's letter on foot and mouth disease published. Mr Deasy believes that the disease can be cured but in this, as in most of his other assertions, he is mistaken. Stephen understands this and thinks ironically 'Is this old wisdom?'.

In the Homeric correspondence Telemacus/Stephen goes to Nestor/Deasy for news of his father and is told of the siege of Troy.

Sandymount Strand

The Strand

School

Joyce himself wrote a sub-editorial on foot and mouth disease in the Freeman's Journal on 10 September 1912. His interest in the subject originated from his friendship with Henry N. Blackwood Price, an Ulsterman he met in Trieste. Blackwood Price had heard of a cure for foot and mouth while in Austria and asked Joyce to obtain an address by William Field M.P., who was president of the Irish Cattle Traders Society.