This paper discusses the relationship between Victorian / Edwardian styles of masculinity and the construction of Irish manliness in Ulysses. Seeing masculinity as theatrical performance both in its nature and in its exertion, I focus on the ways in which dandies and muscular men in 1904 Dublin reproduce the ethos of the colonizer while importing English styles of masculinity. Irish dandies, Kernan, Boylan, and Mulligan in particular, entertain the fantasy of fashioning themselves, and yet they fall short of self-invention and norms of delicacy. The enthusiasm for athleticism and muscular manliness, most notably demonstrated by the citizen, replicates the Victorian / Edwardian cult of physical culture along with its aggressiveness and racial Othering. The citizen metaphorically understands the colonial situation in terms of a triangular relationship that consists of a conquering man (the colonizer), an adulterous woman (the nation-land), and a betrayed man (the colonized), thus reducing a colonial confrontation to a man-to-man rivalry, a battle between two masculine powers that are oppositional yet similar in kind. The dandies and athletes in Ulysses illustrate that they internalize the logic of the colonizer while enacting English styles of masculinity. In so doing, they subject themselves not only to the gaze of others but also to English culture. In "Circe," Joyce seems to offer a double-edged answer to this dilemma of colonial masculinity. There is no essential masculinity (and femininity by implication), but instead one adopts or fashions masculinity. However, performance constitutes an identity that cannot be undone simply by doffing costumes.