During this election period, around Bloomsday could be an opportune moment to inquire about the political ideologies of Leopold Bloom. Bloom, along with his author James Joyce, aren’t normally associated with politics. However, they were both deeply connected to the political ideologies during the early 1900s in Ireland. It was Charles Stewart Parnell and Arthur Griffith, two prevailing political figures, to whom both Bloom and Joyce were inclined. Bloom identified Griffith as an emerging political figure.
As Bloom broods over Molly’s impending infidelity, he additionally grapples with issues relating to Irish identity that were prevalent in 1904 and appear to be resurfacing in 2024. Although Bloom is cognizant of his identity, his contemporaries in Dublin view him as a bit of an outsider, particularly on racial and religious grounds. When queried about his nationality, he asserts emphatically, “Ireland. I was born here. Ireland.” However, his statement doesn’t align with some of the patrons at Barney Kiernan’s pub on Little Britain Street, creating an uncertainty about his Irishness.
Much like his father, James Joyce admired Parnell. Joyce showcased his admiration in a 1912 Trieste newspaper article where he praised Parnell’s extraordinary character who managed to control English politicians’ decisions. Joyce commended him for unifying every aspect of national life and coming close to rebellion.
Bloom’s wife, Molly, revealed that Bloom once aspired to vie for a parliamentary seat. Just like Joyce, Bloom was enticed by Parnell’s allure and pondered that politics requires a certain allure, such as Parnell’s. He contended that Parnell manipulated men, immobilising them with his intense gaze.
In the dreamlike Circe segment, Bloom is introduced as potential successor to Parnell, striving to establish an avant-garde Bloomusalem in the future’s Nova Hibernia. His manifesto calls for reformed civic conduct, adherence to the simple ten commandments, embracing unity irrespective of religion – Jewish, Muslim or gentile, ushering new eras, and endorsing free finance, free affection, and the establishment of an unrestricted lay church within a free state. This supports the idea that “Old Ollebo M.P.,” (an anagram Bloom created from his name), would have eagerly joined Parnell’s political circle.
Joyce admired Griffith and his publication, The United Irishman. He considered Griffith’s Sinn Féin as reincarnation of Fenian separatist tradition. In Ulysses, he humorously implies that Bloom, who had a Hungarian paternity, inspired Griffith’s idea of The Resurrection Hungary, proposing that Ireland should pursue a British-Irish dual monarchy, modelled after Austro-Hungarian lines. Nevertheless, Molly presents her personal perspective on Griffith, stating that despite his less-than-impressive appearance, she recognises him as a smart and promising figure, although she is not a fan of his trouser style!
Molly recounts Bloom’s recent involvement with the so-called “Sinner Fein,” and his familiar nonsensical debates, indicating his association with Griffith’s Sinn Féin. Griffith’s emphasis on financial stability during independence likely attracted Bloom, who Joyce portrays as a cautious, practical common man.
The only depicted elected official in Ulysses is JP Nannetti, whom Bloom runs into during the Aeolus episode and describes as a hardworking trade unionist. As a foreman at the Freeman’s Journal and founding member of the Dublin Trades Council, Nannetti symbolises the growing influence of the labour faction within nationalism during Ulysses era.
Bloom’s interest in Nannetti is quite understandable given their shared heritage. Bloom, though, found it odd how Nannetti had never actually seen his homeland. Despite his Italian ancestry, Nannetti had successfully integrated himself into the Irish political scene, while Bloom remained overlooked, largely due to his complex religious and ethnic alignment, by many of his Dublin counterparts.
On the date of June 16th, 1904, Nannetti was en route to London to make inquiries concerning the police commissioner’s ban on Irish games in the park, confirming his influential role in the developing Gaelic Athletic Association and its increasing importance in Irish society in the early 20th century. Through Nannetti, it becomes clear how intertwined the politics of the Irish party and the emerging ideologies that preceded the Easter Rising were. Nannetti was not only a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood for his entire life but also played significant roles in various aspects of nationalist movement. One of his unique achievements was serving as the Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1906, the same year that Boss Croker, a former Tammany Hall leader was granted honorary Dubliner status, and subsequently listed by Joyce amongst his 99 “Irish heroes and heroines of antiquity”.
While Bloom, like Joyce, was attracted to both Parnell and Griffith, he was not in favour of the Irish ethos or the burgeoning Fenian tradition from 1916 to 1922 when Joyce was penning Ulysses. His bold retort to “the citizen”, illustrating his opposition to force, hatred, and historical manipulation, sets him apart as a proponent of tolerance.
Bloom’s Ireland found itself on the precipice dividing the diminishing world of Parnell that Joyce’s father inhabited, and the increasingly hostile era that would follow, which saw Joyce’s contemporaries remodel Ireland. Referred to as Mr Cautious Calmer in Oxen of the Sun, Bloom, akin to his creator, was a Parnellite Sinn Féiner of the 1904 brand, a moderate nationalist who appeared to be out of place in a realm increasingly governed by more assertive political philosophies.
In his latest publication, “Pilgrim Soul: WB Yeats and the Ireland of his Time,” Daniel Mulhall explores the era and environment of Yeats’s Ireland (published by New Island Books in 2023).