Why does Mulligan call Stephen “Kinch”?
Kinch is Buck Mulligan's nickname for Stephen Dedalus. The name is usually read as the sound of a blade, something sharp and thin like Stephen's wit. It is the first name Mulligan shouts down the tower stairs.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Several episodes. Mulligan, calling Stephen up to the roof at the start of the novel.
Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
What it means in plain English
Mulligan has other names for him too, “you dreadful bard” and “you fearful jesuit”, all of them teasing.
Stephen uses it about himself in Proteus, “Kinch here”, as if he has absorbed the mocking name.
Literary context
Joyce's friend Oliver St John Gogarty, the model for Mulligan, is said to have used the name for Joyce.
References
- Ulysses, Episodes 1 and 3
- Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (revised edition, 1982)
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Questions readers ask
Why is Stephen called a jesuit?
He was educated by the Jesuits, and Mulligan mocks his serious, priestly manner.
Related terms
Buck Mulligan
Stephen's witty, blasphemous flatmate, a medical student. He opens the novel parodying the Catholic Mass at the tower.
Stephen Dedalus
The young writer who opens the novel — brilliant, grieving, and adrift. Joyce's Telemachus, the searching son.
Introibo ad altare Dei
“Introibo ad altare Dei” is Latin for “I will go up to the altar of God”, the opening words of the old Catholic Mass. Buck Mulligan intones them on the roof of the Martello tower, holding up his shaving bowl like a chalice. They are the first words spoken in Ulysses.