Synopsis
by Gerry O'Flaherty
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Sir
John Rogerson's Quay |
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Bloom
has come about a mile from his home to Sir John Rogerson's Quay.
It is about ten o'clock and although it is not indicated in the
text, Bloom goes by a roundabout way to Westland Row post office
to collect a letter left poste restate under his assumed name, Henry
Flower.
He
is conducting a half-hearted affair by letter with Martha Clifford,
which he knows will never come to anything. He meets C.P. M'Coy
who annoys him by comparing their respective wives' singing abilities.
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Mosque
like baths Bloom passes |
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In
a quiet street nearby Bloom reads Martha's letter in which she
encloses a yellow flower. Bloom puts the flower in his waistcoat
pocket and goes into All Hallows church where Mass is ending.
In
Sweny's chemist shop he buys a cake of lemon soap and has a prescription
for skin lotion made up for Molly. Outside, Bantam Lyons waylays
him and asks to see his newspaper. Bloom offers it to him saying
that he was going to throw it away, thus, innocently, giving a
tip for a horse called Throwaway running in the Gold Cup at Ascot
that day. Later, this will get him in to a lot of trouble. We
leave Bloom as he makes his way towards the Turkish baths in Leinster
Street.
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Westland
Row |
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Here
the Homeric correspondence is to the land of the lotus-eaters,
where Odysseus' men, when they eat the lotus, forget their responsibilities
and want only to remain where they are and have to be forced back
aboard their ship.
Henry
Flower was a DMP officer who was tried for the
murder of a Dublin chambermaid called Bridget Gannon
in 1900. Her friend Margaret Clowry insisted
that she saw the deceased with Officer Flower the
night before her body was found in the Dodder River.
Flower's arrest caused great controversy and was widely
covered in the newspapers of the day.
The media distressed Flower's superior officer John
Hannily so much that he cut his throat. Flower was
acquitted and soon left Ireland for Australia. On
her deathbed some years later, Margaret Clowry herself
admitted to having killed her friend.
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