'Twas he was the dacent gaylabouring youth.

• ’Twas he was the dacent gaylabouring youth → the second of four comments by the Four Old Men (×)

• decent → pronounced daysent in parts of Ireland

• gay: from the german for sudden; happy; cheerful; easy-going; indulgent

• gay: brightly coloured; sunny

• gay: given to social entainment; pleasure-loving; dissipated; licentious; Bohemian

• gay: (archaic) gaywoman a female prostitute , and gayman the client of said prostitute

• gay: homosexual (a recient usage first appearing during the sixties - so highly unlikely to be intended in this sense Joyce . Again like anachronism of 'ho as whore' i seen earlier; people need to keep sharp and not use words that didn't exist eighty years ago: I'm wating for someone to define APL as Applied Programming Language)

• gaying instrument: the penis → stiff and Priam Olim
  • Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

• daylabourer: a worker who is paid on a daily basis