The Dedalus and Bloom Families
Relations of Stephen Dedalus
Stephen Dedalus was Joyce's alter-ego in both Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Joyce modelled Simon Dedalus on his father, John Stanislaus Joyce; Richie Goulding on his uncle, William Murray. Joyce's mother, like Stephen's, was named Mary but went as May.
Joyce gave three of the Dedalus girls the names of his wife's sisters: Maggie, Delia, and Kathleen. Possibly Mary Barnacle, who emigrated to the United States, or Annie was sometimes called Boody. Joyce's sisters were Margaret, Eileen, May, Florence, Mabel, and Eva.
n/ Barnacle and Joyce Households, Census Returns, 1901, 1911.
Leopold Bloom's Family Tree
Rudolph Virag, Leopold Bloom's father, was the product of his mother's likely rape by "Hauptmann Hainau" of the Austrian Army. 1/ Virag changed his surname to Bloom prior to marrying Ellen Higgins ("flower" translates to "virag" in Hungarian). Jules Karoly changed his surname to Higgins prior to marrying Fanny Hegarty.
Most of Bloom's ancestors are Hungarian at a time when Hungary was part of the Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire. Joyce lived within the Hapsburg empire while resident in Pola and Trieste, about ten years. More importantly, two-thirds of the years between his graduation from university and his move to Paris, he spent in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Joyce was vague about Bloom's ancestry. In "Lotus Eaters" Bloom recalls that he was born in 1866, a year after his father moved from London. 2/ The reader; however, eventually learns not to trust Bloom's memory. It's very likely that Rudolph Virag arrived in Dublin two or more years before meeting Ellen Higgins. As a condition of marriage, he converted to the Anglican faith in 1865 through the Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews. 3/ The wedding was likely in mid-1865 and Leopold was born in May the following year.
One could suppose that Bloom was correct in his recollection of his father's arrival in Dublin. In which case, Virag probably met Miss Higgins in London. Ellen Higgins' mother, Fanny, then would have been an Irishwoman living in London who met and married the Hungarian immigrant, Jules Karoly. Note that Karoly took an English name, Higgins, and it is far more likely that a Hungarian would immigrate to London, England than Dublin, Ireland.
1/ U (Gabler) 17:869.2/ Ibid., 5:198-993/ Ibid., 17:1637-39