In Lotus Eaters, as Bloom watches the pious
worshipers in St. Andrew's church and imagines how women may
confess some of their sins to a priest "and do the other thing
all the same on the sly," he thinks of "That fellow that
turned queen's evidence on the invincibles he used to receive
the, Carey was his name, the communion every morning. This
very church. Peter Carey. No, Peter Claver I am thinking
of. Denis Carey. And just imagine that. Wife and
six children at home. And plotting that murder all the time."
In Lestrygonians he is still searching for the first
name: "Like that Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the
gaff on the invincibles. Member of the corporation
too." The man's name was James Carey, but Bloom remembers his
story quite accurately.
James Carey was the son of a bricklayer who became a builder
and landlord. He lived on Denzille
Street and owned properties also on Denzille Lane,
Hamilton Row, South Cumberland Street, and South Gloucester
Street. By virtue of his success in business he was elected to
the Corporation, and some
people spoke of him as possible Lord Mayor material. But since
1861 he had been a member of the
Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Fenian group that mounted
a violent rebellion in 1867. Carey left the IRB in 1881
and helped to found a new group calling itself the
Invincibles. On 6 May 1882 nine of them wielding long knives
killed the under-secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
Thomas Henry Burke, along with Lord Frederick Cavendish, the
Chief Secretary for Ireland, who happened to be with him in
Phoenix Park. The perpetrators were sought for a long time
without success, but in January 1883 Carey and sixteen other
men were arrested. He turned state's evidence, and his
testimony was used to convict and hang five of his fellow
conspirators. The government took him into protective custody
and put him on a ship to South Africa. There, a fellow
bricklayer who became friendly with Carey learned who he was
and shot him dead on board the ship.
Although he cannot remember his given name, Bloom's knowledge
of the man is remarkably full. Carey had a brother named
Peter, likewise committed to violent action. He was elected a
Councillor. He was known for attending services at the
nearby St. Andrew's church
every single day. Igoe quotes a contemporary reporter,
J. B. Hall, who remarked on his "reputation for ostentatious
piety." Thornton describes Bloom's knowledge of Carey's family
situation as "amazingly accurate: in a London Times interview
of February 20, 1883, Mrs. Carey says that they have seven
children, and that the youngest is a baby two months old"
(85).
It is possible that Carey enters Bloom's thoughts because he
has entered the church from the back door on South Cumberland Street.
There, he was only a few steps away from one of Carey’s houses
where the knives from the Phoenix Park murders were found—a
discovery that was widely reported in the newspapers and
caused a sensation. One of Carey's tenants in the house had
seen him using a ladder to make secret trips to the attic and
climbed up to see what was there. He found two long surgical
amputation knives that fit the wounds inflicted in the park.
