Freeman's Journal

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The Freeman's Journal was founded in 1763 by Charles Lucas as a voice for the ecumenical Protestant nationalism that produced leaders like Henry Grattan and Henry Flood and, later, Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet. The paper regressed to more pro-British views from 1784 to 1802 under the editorship of Francis Higgins, the "Sham Squire," but it regained its moral footing in the 19th century, especially under the ownership of Sir John Gray from the 1840s to the early 70s, when it advocated for land reform, disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, and Catholic civil rights. Gray's son, Edmund Dwyer Gray, took over management of the paper in 1875 and involved it in the nationalist campaign for Home Rule, which made it hated and feared in England.

Ambivalent attitudes toward Charles Stewart Parnell that originated with John Gray kept the paper loyal to the great Irish parliamentary leader in the immediate aftermath of the O'Shea divorce scandal that tore apart his party, but finally caused it to renounce him in September 1891. In March 1892 the Freeman merged with a paper called the National Press, resulting in the full name used twice in Ulysses, the "Freeman's Journal and National Press." In 1924 the paper was acquired by the Irish Independent, a paper that had been launched in late 1891 to support the Parnellite cause. For many decades the masthead of the Independent proclaimed that it had swallowed up the Freeman.

Having thought in Calypso about his paper's logo of a homerule sun rising up in the northwest, Bloom walks around with a copy of the day's Freeman throughout Lotus Eaters. He carries it in a sidepocket of his jacket, rolls it up lengthwise into a "baton" and taps his leg with it, sticks it in his armpit, unfolds it to look at ads, and uses it to shield Martha Clifford's letter from view. Most consequentially, he lends it to Bantam Lyons and takes it back after offering to let Lyons keep it. It is this paper that persuades Lyons to put down money on the horse Throwaway, because Bloom says, "I was just going to throw it away." Ithaca looks back on the decisive impact that Bloom's newspaper had "when, when Frederick M. (Bantam) Lyons had rapidly and successively requested, perused and restituted the copy of the current issue of the Freeman’s Journal and National Press which he had been about to throw away (subsequently thrown away), he had proceeded towards the oriental edifice of the Turkish and Warm Baths, 11 Leinster street, with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the secret of the race, graven in the language of prediction."

Knowing that Bloom has "subsequently thrown away" the paper raises the question of whether the novel has represented this action. No surprise: it has. In Hades Bloom is still holding it as he steps out of the carriage, and in the mortuary chapel he unfolds it to kneel upon. At the end of Lestrygonians he finds it still in his coat pocket as he rummages for his lemon soap: "Try all pockets. Handker. Freeman. Where did I? Ah, yes. Trousers. Potato. Purse. Where?" Sirens shows it still to be in his possession in the Ormond dining room, performing the same trick of shielding clandestine correspondence as he composes a reply to Martha: "Down the edge of his Freeman baton ranged Bloom’s, your other eye, scanning for where did I see that. Callan, Coleman, Dignam Patrick. Heigho! Heigho! Fawcett. Aha! Just I was looking... / Hope he’s not looking, cute as a rat. He held unfurled his Freeman. Can’t see now."

But somewhat later in Sirens, as he thinks about getting out of the Ormond bar before Ben Dollard finishes singing The Croppy Boy, Bloom's thoughts indicate that he will leave the paper lying on the restaurant table: "Get out before the end. Thanks, that was heavenly. Where's my hat. Pass by her. Can leave that Freeman."