More Irish than the Irish

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Ploce (PLO-see or PLO-kee, from Greek ploke = weaving, plaiting, twisting) carries the general sense of repeating a single word for emphasis. Summarizing much current usage, Gideon Burton (rhetoric.byu.edu) writes that "Ploce is a general term and has sometimes been used in place of more specific terms such as polyptoton (when the repetition involves a change in the form of the word) or antanaclasis (when the repetition involves a change in meaning)." The overlap with antanaclasis can be heard in the definition of the OED: "The repetition of a word in an altered or more expressive sense, or for the sake of emphasis." Richard Nordquist (thoughtco.com) similarly emphasizes this element of altered meaning: "the repetition of a word or name, often with a different sense, after the intervention of one or more other words."

But neither of these resources mentions a specific kind of altered meaning that was once, it seems, commonly associated with ploce. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the figure as "emphatic repetition of a word with particular reference to its special significance (as in 'a wife who was a wife indeed')." The ifioque.com website calls it "a form of speech which consists in the repetition of the same word to signify in one place the subject (person or thing), and in the other the attribute of the person or thing, such as morals, or general qualities."

Two of the earliest English works on rhetoric suggest that this sense of the term was once more widespread. Henry Peacham remarks that "Ploce is a forme of speech by which a proper name being repeated, signifieth another thing." John Smith goes into more detail, calling it "A figure when a word is by way of Emphasis so repeated, that it denotes not only the thing signified, but the quality of the thing: Hereby the proper name of any man well known, being repeated, signifies the nature and permanent quality of the man, whose name it is." Peacham cites several examples from antiquity: "Yet at that day Memmius was Memmius: in the first place Memmius is the proper name of a man, but in the second, it signifieth his manners, which were well knowne"; “In that great victorie Caesar was Caesar, that is, a mercifull conquerer”; "Cicero continued Cicero unto the day of his death, meaning, a lover of his countrey, and a most faithfull patrone of the common wealth.”

§ Joyce's sentence demonstrates this ancient principle of converting a proper name into qualities commonly associated with the name. Nannetti and Cuprani are "More Irish than the Irish": they will say or do anything to seem Irish, even things that actual Irish people would not do or say. Bloom is thinking of comparatively recent immigrations from the Continent, but the expression recalls Ireland's longstanding experience of being invaded by settlers from England, Wales, and Scotland. Slote observes that although the Latin phrase Hiberniores ipsis Hibernis was coined in the 18th century, the sentiment goes back to John Lynch's 17th century work Cambrensis Eversus. Lynch, an Irish Catholic historian, observed that the descendants of the 12th century Anglo-Norman invaders did not establish a new culture but instead adopted Irish language, names, dress, and ways of life. In his essay "Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages," Joyce said the same thing about later waves of immigrants from the east: "It was the Protestants, who had now become Hibernicis ipsis Hibernior, more Irish than the Irish themselves, that were inciting the Irish Catholics to oppose the Calvinist and Lutheran fanatics from across the water."