Mahan

• mathúin: (Irish literary term) bear → the older spelling is mathghamhain; in Middle Irish the spelling is mathgamain; math also meant "bear"

• mahan: (Anglo-Irish) bear

• MacMahon: Irish surname usually taken to mean Son of the Bear → in FW generally signifies S, HCE's Man Servant
  • Third Census of Finnegans Wake

• Mathgamain (Mathghamhain): Brian Ború's half-brother and King of Munster; his name means "bear" in 976 he was murdered; Brian avenged the deed and became King of Munster in 978

• Mahon: Christy Mahon, protagonist of J. M. Synge's play The Playboy of the Western World → Joyce originally wrote Mahon → James S. Atherton writes in The Books at the Wake (1959, p. 284): "It also seems that one aspect of the Man Servant is Christy Mahon, described by Pegeen Mike as The oddest walking fellow I ever set my eyes on, and told by her, a minute later: You're pot boy now in this place" (S is charged with rinsing out the empties in HCE's tavern)

• Alfred Thayer Mahan: America naval officer (27 September 1840 - 1 December 1914); many ships were named after him