# Dubliners — Character guide

> Key figures in Dubliners by James Joyce.

- [Gabriel Conroy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/gabriel_conroy.md): Gabriel arrives at the Morkan sisters' annual dance as the favored nephew, expected to carve the goose and deliver the after-dinner speech. He is anxious about his wife Gretta's mood, his own continental affectations, an
- [Little Chandler](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/little_chandler.md): Chandler works at the King's Inns, takes care of his hands and hair, and dreams of writing poetry he never reads aloud to his wife. Meeting Gallaher after eight years stirs both admiration and a sharper envy he can barel
- [Eveline Hill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/eveline_hill.md): Eveline keeps house for her father and brothers, spending her wages on provisions and enduring her father's moods. Frank offers her Buenos Aires, marriage, and a life she can barely imagine. Her struggle between the fami
- [Farrington](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/farrington.md): Farrington works under the pinched, egg-headed Mr. Alleyne, who berates him for missed contracts and long lunches. He escapes into pubs, pawns his watch, and nurses grievances that only sharpen with whiskey. His bulk and
- [Maria](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/maria.md): Maria works at the Dublin by Lamplight laundry and is beloved for her peacemaking and her plumcake. She travels across town to Joe Donnelly's house, where she is welcomed but also gently mocked, and where a forgotten son
- [James Duffy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/james_duffy.md): Duffy lives alone in Chapelizod, avoids Dublin's social rituals, and keeps his thoughts in a tidy, self-flattering order. His friendship with Mrs. Sinico begins as intellectual confession and slides into something he can
- [Lenehan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/lenehan.md): Lenehan moves through Dublin's streets as a dependent wit, bright-eyed and quick to read a room, but always a step behind the bolder men he attaches himself to. He craves a share in Corley's conquests yet knows he must u
- [Corley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/corley.md): Corley dominates the pavement with his solid boots and swaying head, confident that he can 'pull off' whatever scheme he and Lenehan have hatched. He is vain, calculating, and casually contemptuous of the women he pursue
- [Polly Mooney](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/polly_mooney.md): Polly lives above the family boarding house, aware that she is being watched and that her mother's silence carries its own meaning. She is neither naive nor fully in control: she wants the affair to be thought her own wi
- [Mrs. Mooney](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/mrs_mooney.md): Mrs. Mooney runs her house with the same economy she brings to her daughter's predicament, watching, waiting, and intervening only when the moment is ripe. She is not sentimental about reparation: she counts her cards, w
- [Mr. Doran](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/mr_doran.md): Mr. Doran has spent years cultivating a sober, regular life, and now finds it balanced on the edge of a scandal he cannot brazen out. He is torn between his instinct to remain free and the priest's magnified sense of sin
- [Ignatius Gallaher](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/gallaher.md): Gallaher was the friend everyone remembered for his bold face and rakish set, the one who borrowed money and slipped out of a shady affair into a career on Fleet Street. His return stirs Little Chandler's envy and ambiti
- [Mrs. Kearney](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/mrs_kearney.md): Mrs. Kearney has spent years engineering Kathleen's reputation—convent French, Academy fees, an Irish teacher, postcards in the language movement—until the name Miss Kathleen Kearney is heard on everyone's lips. When Mr.
- [Kathleen Kearney](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/kathleen_kearney.md): Kathleen learned French and music at a good convent and now accompanies the Eire Abu Society's grand concerts for eight guineas, her blush-pink dress chosen by someone else. She is the family's showcase—proof of culture,
- [Mr. Holohan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/holohan.md): Mr. Holohan arrives at the Kearneys' with a proposal and leaves with a contract, a glass of sherry, and a daily appointment for advice. He means well and knows he is out of his depth—capitals, small type, the first tenor
- [Mr. Kernan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/kernan.md): Mr. Kernan has a stinging tongue, puffy cheeks like warm cinders, and a wife who has spent twenty-five years healing him without complaint. He books even small orders and never turns violent, so his intemperance passes a
- [Mr. Cunningham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/mr_cunningham.md): Where Mr. Power supplies the idea of the retreat, Cunningham supplies the tact—the visits, the flattery, the careful timing that will get a proud, thirsty man through the chapel door. He moves through Dublin as a fixer o
- [Mr. Browne](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/mr_browne.md): A Protestant gentleman who accompanies the group to the Jesuit retreat.
- [Gretta Conroy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/gretta_conroy.md): Gretta moves through the Misses Morkan's annual dance as the graceful, laughing wife of the evening's star—until a melody on the stairs stops her cold and carries her somewhere Gabriel cannot follow. She is practical, wa
- [Aunt Julia Morkan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/aunt_julia_morkan.md): Julia Morkan is one of the two elderly sisters whose annual Christmas dance gathers Dublin's musical set into their candlelit rooms on Usher's Island. When the talk turns to goloshes and Continental fashions, she asks qu
- [Aunt Kate Morkan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/aunt_kate_morkan.md): Kate Morkan co-hosts the Misses Morkans' annual dance, managing the room, the guests, and her sister's wandering attention with practiced cheer. She laughs heartily at Gabriel's goloshes joke, then redirects the conversa
- [Freddy Malins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/freddy_malins.md): A drunken young man who arrives late to the Morkan party with his mother.
- [Miss Ivors](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/miss_ivors.md): A spirited nationalist who challenges Gabriel about his lack of Irish pride.
- [Lily](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/lily.md): The caretaker's daughter who helps at the Morkan party and speaks with Gabriel.
- [Mr. Henchy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/mr_henchy.md): Mr. Henchy moves through the shabby machinery of a local election, canvassing votes and trading small confidences with men who owe him. He is the kind of operator who knows which alderman drinks where and which promise c
- [Mr. Hynes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/hynes.md): A loyal follower of the late Parnell who canvasses for a different candidate.
- [Mr. O'Connor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/mr_oconnor.md): A canvasser who works alongside Mr. Henchy in the election campaign.
- [Mr. Crofton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/crofton.md): A conservative canvasser who joins the group in the committee room.
- [Mr. M'Coy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/mccoy.md): A friend of Lenehan who borrows a valise for his wife's supposed singing tour.
- [Leo Dillon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/leo_dillon.md): A timid schoolboy who fails to join the narrator and Mahony on their adventure.
- [Frank](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/frank.md): A sailor who courts Eveline and offers her a new life in Buenos Aires.
- [Charles Ségouin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/charles_segouin.md): A wealthy Frenchman who hosts the after-race party and drives a racing car.
- [Villona](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/villona.md): A Hungarian pianist who accompanies the racing party and plays at dinner.
- [Jimmy Doyle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/jimmy_doyle.md): A young Irishman who invests in the racing venture and loses money at cards.
- [Miss Delacour](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/miss_delacour.md): A wealthy client who visits the law office where Farrington works.
- [Mr. Fitzpatrick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/mr_fitzpatrick.md): The manager of the concert series who clashes with Mrs. Kearney over payment.
- [Mrs. Emily Sinico](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/mrs_sinico.md): A lonely woman who befriends Mr. Duffy and later dies in a railway accident.
- [Joe Donnelly](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters/joe_donnelly.md): Maria's former foster son who welcomes her on Halloween evening.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dubliners_se/characters