Oldparr

• Parr: Thomas Parr, an English man who supposedly lived for 152 years (but cf. Bram Stoker, Dracula, ch. 14, in which his age is give as 169), often referred to simply as "Old Parr", or "Old Tom Parr". He was said to have been born in 1483 near Shrewsbury, and joined the army around 1500. He did not marry until he was 80 years old. He attributed his long life to his vegetarian diet and moral temperance, although when he was around 100 years old he had an affair and an illegitimate child; he was also a notorious gossip-monger. The poet John Taylor wrote about Parr in his 1635 poem The Old, Old, Very Old Man, or the Age and Long Life of Thomas Parr. The whiskey brand Old Parr is named for him and recounts his claimed birth and death years on its label
  • Wikipedia
  • Third Census of Finnegans Wake

• parr: a juvenile fish (especially a salmon), preparing to leave the fresh waters of its birthplace. When the young Fionn mac Cumhail ate a bit of the "Salmon of Knowledge" (An Bradán Feasa), he gained that knowledge or wisdom for himself → FW 205.02 parr

• père: (French) father

• Parnell: Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party in the latter part of the 19th Century → Parnell
  • Third Census of Finnegans Wake

• old pair / old parents: Adam and Eve

• a once wallstrait oldparr: = a once straight (sober/honest) old father, HCE. The implication is that HCE has deteriorated and decayed, and is no longer the upstanding man this phrase relates to. Thus the fall of HCE is retold in bed, the tragedy relived in his dreams (and the dream that is FW). See also: erse solid man

• Par: (Ancient Egyptian) a god who is described in Chapter 162 of the Book of the Dead as "the lord of the phallus"

Commentary

Combining the meanings mentioned above of "Old Parr" and a young salmon seems to establish a pattern used throughout the book of combining old and young, beginning and end, death and resurrection in the same word or phrase. Other examples: "For Ark see Zoo" (FW 104.19), combining the beginning and end of the alphabet and perhaps encyclopedia entries; "Apophanypes" (FW 626.05), combining "apocalypse" and "epiphany" to encapsulate the beginning embedded in an ending, as exemplified by Vico's philosophy, the structure of the book, and the song Finnegan's Wake.