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[ Aetat. 21-22 ] J O Y C E 153school founded a few years before at Summerfield Lodge, once the residenceof the minor poet Denis Florence McCarthy whose name keepscoming up in Finnegans Wake. The founder and headmaster was anUlster Scot, very pro-British, named Francis Irwin, a Trinity Collegegraduate. Joyce devotes the second chapter of Ulysses to describing Stephen'sactivities at a school clearly modeled on Irwin's.As usual, his account is tenacious of remembered facts. The studentswhom Stephen teaches are based in part at least on actual ones: Armstrong,for example, is described as living on Vico Road, with a brotherin the Navy, and eating figrolls;and Joyce appears to be blending CecilWright, the figroll-eater,with Clifford Ferguson, 22 who suits the rest ofthe description. Irwin is presented under the name of Deasy, oddly inappropriatefor an Ulster Scot, and his personality is merged with that ofan Ulsterman Joyce knew in Trieste, Henry Blackwood Price, who hadDeasy's preoccupation with a distinguished Ulster ancestry and shared hisinterest in the hoof-and-mouth disease. Joyce represents Deasy as a grasswidower, although Price was happily married and Irwin was a bachelorwho lived with a sister, but in other respects treats him indulgently, sparing,for example, any mention of his red nose, or of the shutting-downof the school soon after because of Irwin's alcoholism. Joyce can havetaught there only a few weeks.Late in April he received the firstof a series of invitations from Gogartyto pay him a visit at Oxford. 23If Joyce could raise three pounds forthe fare, Gogarty would cover the rest of his expenses. He wisely declinedto send money ahead for fear Joyce would not turn up. Joyce would haveliked to see Oxford, and perhaps did not mind the prospect of beingexhibited there by ringmaster Gogarty as a rare specimen of undomesticatedHibernian man. But he could not raise three pounds. The invitationscontinued, and read—as did Joyce's replies—rather like messagesexchanged in a secret society. Gogarty covered the margins with notes iljthat went in every direction; he addressed Joyce as 'Wandering Aengus'* 1and as 'Scorner of Mediocrity and Scourge of the Rabblement.' In a letter *of May 3 he informed him he had been only runner-up in the Newdigate,subjoined that he had two new suits, one for Joyce to wear, andurged him again to come. Joyce replied by asking for a loan, representinghis condition as desperate. Gogarty countered by sending him a budgetto detail the reasons for his being unable to oblige. Joyce returned thebudget, and shifted adroitly to ask for something else:60 Shelbourne Road,Dublin.Dear GogartyI sent you back the budget. I am still alive. Here is a more reasonablerequest. I am singing at a garden fete on Friday and if you have a decent* Mulligan says in Ulysses (249 [320]), 'Wandering Aengus I call him.'