Leopold Bloom, a Jewish-Irish hero of the Odyssean novel, Ulysses, is rumored to be a Freemason.  Early in the novel, Nosey Flynn has said of Bloom, "He's in the craft" (U 8.960), while he passes the Freemason Headquarters in Molesworth Street (U 8.1151).  Later, the man called "the citizen" refers to Bloom, "What's that bloody freemason doing ... prowling up and down outside?" (U 12.300-1).  In several parts of the Circe episode, Bloom gives a sign of Freemasonry.  Even Molly says twice that her husband was a Freemason (U 18.382 & 1227).  Although some critics like Patrick W. Conner explain that Bloom is no longer a Mason simply because he converted to Catholicism in order to marry Molly, he still has a touch of Masonry.
  Ira B. Nadel notes in Joyce and the Jews that ever since the eighteenth century, the idea of Jews and Freemasons forming a secret conspiracy planning to take over the world provided anti-Semites with much material: most dangerously, Jews were disguised as Christians and infiltrating the priesthood(210).  Freemason lodges had in fact long admitted Jews.  So it seems to me that James Joyce strategically put Freemasonic signs throughout Ulysses, establishing the thematic importance of Masonic concepts in the novel with the protagonist having a Jewish background.
  Freemasonry was established in Ireland in June 1725.¹  The number of Irish Freemasons increased from about 28,000 in 1920 to 43,000 in 1925; in Dublin alone there were 59 Freemason lodges in 1920, and in 1925 there were 70.²  The biography John Stanislaus Joyce by John Wyse Jackson and Peter Costello notes that a Republican raid on the Molesworth Street headquarters led to intense embarrassment for certain of the Dublin burgesses when a substantial number of Catholic Freemasons was revealed(383).  The Irish Freemasons were a more successfully oathbound secret society than the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood had ever been, according to Jackson and Costello(384).   In 1896 the Irish Catholic Church accused French Freemasons of Devil worship.
  This essay focuses on Bloom's Jewish identity and his relationship with Freemasonry, referring to the problems of the Jews and Freemasonry in early twentieth-century Ireland.
 
 

  Joyce asked Frank Budgen in his letter dated Nov. 6, 1921 to send him "any little handbook of Brit. Freemasonry." ³  Later Budgen informed Ulrich Schneider that he was not sure whether he sent such a book, but was inclined to think he did not.⁴  It suggests that Joyce already had some sources, because several allusions to Freemasonry were added to the text before that request.  But it is very difficult to identify what sources Joyce used for the Masonic references.  One plausible reference is Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1910-11), especially its entry, "FREEMASONRY."  Another source, particularly for the Circe episode, would be A Ritual and Illustrations of Freemasonry(London, 1837) as Schneider says(304).   Judging from the fact that Joyce inserted them in different stages after the Little Review series, Joyce used several books including a British or Irish Freemasonic source.
  As Joyce told Frank Budgen, his complete man in literature is Ulysses, i.e. Odysseus, because " Ulysses is son to Laertes, but he is father to Telemachus, husband to Penelope, lover to Calypso, companion in arms of Greek warriors around Troy and King of Ithaca" and Joyce saw him "from all sides, and therefore he is all-round in the sense of your sculptor's figure.  But he is a complete man as well--a good man.  At any rate, that is what I intend that he shall be"(17-18).⁵
  Leopold Bloom, a Jewish-Irish hero of the Odyssean novel, Ulysses, is rumored to be a Freemason.  When Nosey Flynn says of Bloom, "He's in the craft" (U 8.960), he is showing off his knowledge of Freemasonry there.  This passage contains many implications to Freemasonry:

08.958.      Nosey Flynn made swift passes in the air with juggling fingers. He
08.959.  winked.
08.960.  --He's in the craft, he said.
08.961.  --Do you tell me so? Davy Byrne said.
08.962.  --Very much so, Nosey Flynn said. Ancient free and accepted order. He's
08.963.  an excellent brother. Light, life and love, by God. They give him a leg up. I
08.964.  was told that by a - well, I won't say who.
08.965.  --Is that a fact?
08.966.  --O, it's a fine order, Nosey Flynn said. They stick to you when you're
08.967.  down. I know a fellow was trying to get into it. But they're as close as damn
08.968.  it. By God they did right to keep the women out of it.
08.969.      Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in one:
08.970.  --Iiiiiichaaaaaaach!
08.971.  --There was one woman, Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a clock to find
08.972.  out what they do be doing. But be damned but they smelt her out and swore
08.973.  her in on the spot a master mason. That was one of the saint Legers of
08.974.  Doneraile.                                           (Italics mine)

The "craft," in speculative Masonry, signifies the whole body of Freemasons in allusion of the heritage of ancient guild of craftsmen.  Nosey Flynn's comment, "Ancient free and accepted order," suggests "Scotch Rite, Ancient and Accepted," which was originally instituted in Scotland and is, next to the York rite, perhaps the most extensively diffused throughout the Masonic world in many countries like England, Scotland, Ireland, France, and the United States, according to Albert Mackey's A Lexicon of Freemasonry.  "They give him a leg up" is based on the popular suspicion as Don Gifford notes in "Ulysses" Annotated: "Masons gave excessive preference to members of their order, even to the point of handing out money" and "the order is committed to help and support its members and families in time of disease and personal crisis."  "They're as close as damn it" is also based on another suspicion 'reflecting not only the exclusive nature of the order but also the assumption that the order involved a profound and conspiratorial "secret"' and 'the order was open to any man at least twenty-one years of age and in body "a perfect youth"'(Gifford).  In addition, Flynn even refers to Elizabeth Aldworth (d.1773): "The celebrated 'Lady Freemason,' the Hon. Mrs. Aldworth (nee Miss St Leger, daughter of Lord Doneraile), witnessed a Masonic meeting and was initiated in Ireland … certainly not later than 1713, when the venturesome lady was twenty"(EB11).  But since Flynn refuses to unveil the source of his knowledge, the reader has no reason to believe it more than a rumor.
 
 

  In the Little Review version published in January 1919, this passage was already almost as it is in the text now as well as the Falkiner passage below in the February-March, 1919 issue(V.9-49;V.10-11,61).
  Bloom watches Sir Frederick Falkiner, going into the Freemason Hall (headquarters) in 17-18 Molesworth Street (U 8.1151).
 
 

Falkiner was the chief judicial officer of Dublin 1904(1831-1908), the notoriously anti-Semitic judge, who makes several appearances in the novel, most notably in the Circe episode where he stands in judgment of Bloom and sentences him to death (U 15.1158-80).⁸  At Barney Kiernan's, Joe Hynes calls Bloom "the prudent member"(U 12.211).  According to Mackey's Lexicon, "Prudence" is one of the four cardinal virtues, the practice of which is inculcated upon the Entered Apprentice.  Later in the Cyclops episode, the man called "the citizen" refers to Bloom, "What's that bloody freemason doing ... prowling up and down outside?" (U 12.300-1).  Near the end of the novel Molly remembers twice in her late night monologue that her husband was a Freemason (U 18.382 & 1227).  These rumors show that Bloom still has a touch of Masonry, although he converted to Catholicism in order to marry Molly.  As Leonard Albert says in his article, "Ulysses, Cannibals and Freemasons" that "Tradition says that there are no ex-Masons; once a Mason, always a Mason.  Secrecy, of course, requires life-commitment to the order" (272).
  Bloom was almost arrested in 1893 or 1894 for attempting to sell tickets for "The Royal and Privileged Hungarian Lottery" and was apparently rescued by members of his Masonic Lodge:

1.
08.184.    Windy night that was I went to fetch her there was that lodge meeting
08.185.  on about those lottery tickets after Goodwin's concert in the supperroom or
08.186.  oakroom of the Mansion house. He and I behind.

2.
12.770.    Then he starts all confused mucking it up about mortgagor under the
12.771.  act like the lord chancellor giving it out on the bench and for the benefit of
12.772.  the wife and that a trust is created but on the other hand that Dignam owed
12.773.  Bridgeman the money and if now the wife or the widow contested the
12.774.  mortgagee's right till he near had the head of me addled with his mortgagor
12.775.  under the act. He was bloody safe he wasn't run in himself under the act
12.776.  that time as a rogue and vagabond only he had a friend in court. Selling
12.777.  bazaar tickets or what do you call it royal Hungarian privileged lottery.
12.778.  True as you're there. O, commend me to an israelite! Royal and privileged
12.779.  Hungarian robbery.                                    (Italics mine)

3.
18.1224.  Helys and Mr Cuffes and Drimmies either hes going to be run into prison
18.1225.  over his old lottery tickets that was to be all our salvations or he goes and
18.1226.  gives impudence well have him coming home with the sack soon out of the
18.1227.  Freeman too like the rest on account of those Sinner Fein or the freemasons
                                                            (Italics mine)

The factual source for this detail appears in the Illustrated Irish Weekly Independent and Nation, 16 June 1904, p.4, col.7, as Gifford notes.  At the stage of the Rosenbach Manuscript, Passage 1 had no connection with Freemasonry: "Windy night that was I went to fetch her of the Goodwin's concert in the supperroom of the Mansion house.  He and I behind" (Rosenbach MS8-5).  In the Little Review version (V.9-31-32, January 1919), "there was that lodge meeting on about those lottery ticket after" was inserted.
  In the Circe episode, where Bloom's most hidden thoughts emerge in his consciousness, the Masonic motifs are taken up many times:

15.449:                            BLOOM

15.450:  (squire of dames, in dinner jacket with wateredsilk facings, blue masonic
15.451:  badge in his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a prismatic
15.452:  champagne glass tilted in his hand) Ladies and gentlemen, I give you
15.453:  Ireland, home and beauty.
              -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -
15.499:  (Richie Goulding, three ladies' hats pinned on his head, appears
15.500:  weighted to one side by the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on
15.501:  which a skull and crossbones are painted in white limewash. He
15.502:  opens it and shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon
15.503:  haddies and tightpacked pills.)                          (Italics mine)

Gifford explains that "limewash" is associated with Freemasonry: in the Scottish rites (which were observed in modified form by Irish Freemasons) a skull and crossbones, symbolic of mortality and death, were used in the Chamber of Reflection as a part of the preliminary ceremonies of initiation.  Joyce seems to have put "limewash" and "a skull and crossbones" into the text before he inserted "blue Masonic badge" in the Typescript (Buffalo V.B.13.h: JJA15.172).  "Blue" is the color used for the decorations of the first three degrees of Masonry (Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason) according to Mackey's Lexicon.
  Bloom gives one of the Freemason's "signs of distress," a signal that makes "brothers immediately known to their brethren" so that they can claim assistance and protection:

15.757.                            BLOOM

15.758.  (scared, hats himself, steps back, then, plucking at his heart and lifting his
15.759.  right forearm on the square, he gives the sign and dueguard of fellowcraft)
15.760.  No, no, worshipful master, light of love. Mistaken identity. The Lyons mail.
15.761.  Lesurques and Dubosc. You remember the Childs fratricide case. We
15.762.  medical men. By striking him dead with a hatchet. I am wrongfully
15.763.  accused. Better one guilty escape than ninetynine wrongfully condemned.

15.764.                            MARTHA

15.765.  (sobbing behind her veil) Breach of promise. My real name is Peggy
15.766.  Griffin. He wrote to me that he was miserable. I'll tell my brother, the
15.767.  Bective rugger fullback, on you, heartless flirt.

15.768.                            BLOOM

15.769.  (behind his hand) She's drunk. The woman is inebriated. (he murmurs
15.770.  vaguely the pass of Ephraim) Shitbroleeth.                 (Italics mine)

As for "Due Guard," Mackey explains: "We are by this ceremony strongly reminded of the time and manner of taking out solemn vows of duty, and hence are duly guarded against any violation of our sacred promises as initiated members of a great moral and social institution."  "Fellowcraft" is the second degree of the first three degrees of Freemasonry; "The members are classified in numerous degrees, of which the first three are 'Entered Apprentice,' 'Fellow Craft' and 'Master Mason,' each class of which, after initiation, can only be attained after passing a prescribed ordeal or examination, as a test of proficiency, corresponding to the 'essays' of the operative period" (EB11).  The phrase "worshipful master, light of love" suggests that Bloom has reached the highest preferment within his lodge.  The "light" of Masonry is pure, as emanating from the source of all purity and perfection, and the word "Worshipful" is the title given to a symbolic lodge and to its presiding officer, the Master(Mackey).  Those Masonic phrases were inserted later in the Page Proofs (Buffalo V.C.1, Texas; JJA26.87).
  Bloom continues to act a Freemason master:

15.2720.                           BLOOM

15.2721.  (In Svengali's fur overcoat, with folded arms and Napoleonic forelock,
15.2722.  frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance towards the
15.2723.  door. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a swift pass with
15.2724.  impelling fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing his right arm
15.2725.  downwards from his left shoulder.) Go, go, go, I conjure you, whoever you
15.2726.  are!                                                (Italics mine)

Bloom performs as a "Past Master," one holding an honorary degree conferred on the Worshipful Master at his installation into office; in this degree the necessary instructions are conferred respecting the various ceremonies of the order, such as installations, processions, the laying of corner stones(Mackey).  He tries to combine the power of Svengali, the demonic Jewish musician of George Du Maurier's novel Trilby and the majestic power of Napoleon.  Here he performs two signs of a Past Master to allude to the penalty of a Past Master, which covers all the former penalties.⁹  The phrase "gives the sign of past master ... shoulder" was added in the Page Proofs(Buffalo V.C.1, Texas; JJA26.219) as well as "In Svengali's fur overcoat" and "in ventriloquial exorcism."
  In the masochistic hallucinations of Bloom and Madam Bella Cohen (Witch Circe), Bloom still keeps his Masonic identity.  He is transformed into one of Bello (the masculine Bella)'s whores and lies before the witch:

15.2850.                           BLOOM

15.2851.  (her eyes upturned in the sign of admiration, closing, yaps) Truffles!

15.2852.   (With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting,
15.2853.   snuffling, rooting at his feet: then lies, shamming dead, with eyes
15.2854.   shut tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the attitude
15.2855.   of most excellent master.)                             (Italics mine.)
 
 

15.2856.                           BELLO

15.2857.  (with bobbed hair, purple gills, fit moustache rings round his shaven
15.2858.  mouth, in mountaineer's puttees, green silverbuttoned coat, sport skirt and
15.2859.  alpine hat with moorcock's feather, his hands stuck deep in his breeches
15.2860.  pockets, places his heel on her neck and grinds it in) Footstool! Feel my
15.2861.  entire weight. Bow, bondslave, before the throne of your despot's glorious
15.2862.  heels so glistening in their proud erectness.
 

15.2863.                           BLOOM

15.2864.  (enthralled, bleats) I promise never to disobey.             (Italics mine)

The phrase "bowed upon ... most excellent master" was added in the Page Proof (Buffalo V.C.1, Texas; JJA26.226), while "I promise never to disobey" had been earlier in the text.  Since Bloom has assumed a Masonic "attitude," his phrase "I promise never to disobey" could be taken as part of the apprentice Mason's oath of initiation.  The act of bowing upon the ground is the sign of admiration, is found in Masonic ritual in the ceremony of a candidate's acceptance as a most excellent master.¹⁰
  After Stephen smashes the brothel's chandelier with his ashplant, Bloom negotiates with Bella Cohen about paying for the damage, making a Masonic sign:

15.4241.                           STEPHEN

15.4242.  Nothung!

15.4243.   (He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the
15.4244.   chandelier. Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following
15.4245.   darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)
        -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -
15.4296.                           BLOOM

15.4297.  O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he's a Trinity student. Patrons of
15.4298.  your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (he makes a masonic
15.4299.  sign) Know what I mean? Nephew of the vicechancellor. You don't want a
15.4300.  scandal.                                            (Italics mine)

Bloom tells a lie that Stephen is a student of Trinity College, the famous English Protestant College established by Elizabeth I in 1591.  Gifford notes that Bloom suggests Freemasonry has an influential connection with the Protestant Anglo-Irish Establishment.  Bloom's Masonic sign was earlier directed in the Rosenbach MS 15-73.
  As the Circe episode closes, Stephen is lying unconscious in the street outside the brothel.  He has been knocked down by the two English soldiers, who imagine he has insulted the name of King Edward VII, ex-grand master of the Grand Lodge of England.¹¹   Bloom, the father seeking a son to replace his own dead son, Rudy, bends over Stephen, whom he has been protecting throughout the episode.  Stephen murmurs Yeats's "Who Goes with Fergus" from Countess Cathleen.  Looking down on the prostrate boy, Bloom feels obscurely some sense of his trans-substantial paternity, and a religious mood possesses him vaguely:

15.4948.                           BLOOM

15.4949.  (communes with the night) Face reminds me of his poor mother. In the
15.4950.  shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl.
15.4951.  Some girl. Best thing could happen him. (he murmurs) ..swear that I will
15.4952.  always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts ..(he
15.4953.  murmurs) ..in the rough sands of the sea ..a cabletow's length from the
15.4954.  shore.... where the tide ebbs.... and flows .....

15.4955.  (Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips in
15.4956.  the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure appears
15.4957.  slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an
15.4958.  Eton suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book
15.4959.  in his hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing
15.4960.  the page.)

15.4961.                          BLOOM

15.4962.  (wonderstruck, calls inaudibly) Rudy!

15.4963.                          RUDY

15.4964.  (gazes, unseeing, into Bloom's eyes and goes on reading, kissing, smiling.
15.4965.  He has a delicate mauve face. On his suit he has diamond and ruby
15.4966.  buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a violet
15.4967.  bowknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.) (Italics mine)

This passage contains the most significant allusions to Masonic ceremonies and symbols.  Bloom's murmurings, as Schneider notes, are part of the oath sworn by the candidate when he is initiated as an Entered Apprentice (309) : his oath signifies his vision of Stephen's initiation as a Mason, though Stephen does not repeat the oath, and might misunderstand it just as Bloom misunderstands his words from Yeats's poem.  Bloom's oath, "[I] swear that I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts," is not only the oath of secrecy but also the oath of initiation: he performs the "secret master"(Schineider 310).  The "secret master" is the fourth degree in the Ancient and Accepted Scotch rite, and the first of the Eleven Ineffable Degrees, which "represents Solomon coming to the temple to elect seven experts" (Schneider 310).¹²   In the National Library of Ireland MS , we cannot find Rudy (Circe MS Folio 27), but we can find him in the Rosenbach MS15-85.  The above two Masonic phrases were inserted in the Page Proofs (Baffalo V.C.1, Texas; JJA26.336) probably to intensify Bloom's paternity.  "A white lambkin" was already in the Rosenbach MS, which can be another Masonic image; "The Lamb has, in all ages, been deemed an emblem of innocence.  He, therefore, who wears the lamb-skin as a badge of Masonry, is, thereby continually reminded of that purity of life and conduct which is essentially necessary to his gaining admission into the Celestial Lodge above, where the Supreme Architect of the Universe presides."¹³
  As Leonard Albert says, in the stage-directions in U15.4955-56, Joyce makes it quite clear that Bloom knows the secret sign of the secret master-Mason, as well as the obligation.  And it is in this religious moment that he sees a vision of his dead son Rudy over Stephen.  Freemasonry is a symbol of fraternal, and paternal love.  As Daniel Schwartz notes in Reading Joyce's "Ulysses," Bloom's Masonic behavior becomes important in a chapter dramatizing Bloom's repressed and unspoken fantasies and hallucinations since Masons cannot speak about Masonry except to fellow Masons (223).
 
 

  Ira B. Nadel notes in Joyce and the Jews that ever since the eighteenth century, anti-Semites believed that Jews and Freemasons formed a secret conspiracy planning a world takeover: "Jews, with their esoteric mysticism, Talmud, and Kabbalah, were, of course, the leaders" and "the providential ministers and Grand Masters of occultism" (Nadel 210-11).
  Although the Jews were a strong element in Masonry from the beginning, they acquired a preponderating influence in the organization from about the middle of the eighteenth century.  This Jewish element was Partheistic.  Thus the Jews all over Europe became a powerful, wealthy and anti-Christian element in the councils of Masonry.¹⁴    Masonic symbolism is peculiarly Jewish in character, and the terms used in the lodges are borrowed from the Old Testament.
  By the late nineteenth century, Pope Leo XIII's anti-Semitism provided new momentum in joining Jews and Masons in a conspiracy theory.  "With books and pamphlets appearing with such titles as French Masonry--Synagogues of Satan, and Freemasonry, Jewish Sect, or The Jewish-Masonic Peril, it is no surprise to read of the opposition of Catholicism to Ernesto Nathan's campaign"(Nadel 211).  Ernesto Nathan was the first Israelite and Freemason Mayor of Rome (1907-13).  Every appointment he made during his term of office was given to a Mason.  The Italian government became Masonic.  The country was poor, degraded, seething with discontent.  It had almost reached the very verge of bankruptcy.  Such was the condition of Italy when Mussolini and the Facisti came on the scene, "saved the Italian nation," and "saved the Church" by suppressing Masonry as the main cause of all the trouble in Italy, both to Church and State.¹⁵   Nadel notes that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious forgery of the Tsarist secret police, embodied the international conspiracy theory through its detailed discussion about Jewish-Masonic co-operation(211).  Thus, people suspected that the Masons, or instruments of the Jews, had caused all revolutions of the past few centuries.
  Then what did all of this mean to Joyce?  The connection of Bloom with the Freemasons is constant throughout the novel and anti-Semitic connotations are implied as well.  Both may derive from the attacks on Ernesto Nathan and his election campaign by the Church around the time when Joyce stayed in Rome between 1906-7, as Nadel argues(212).  After leaving Rome, Joyce must have followed Nathan's election campaign from Trieste: cf.U 5.203-5: "I hear the voice of Nathan...."  Joyce's brother Stanislaus noted in his diary on 10 November 1907, the very day the Roman municipal election was held, that "Joyce told me that he was going to expand his story 'Ulysses' into a short book."¹⁶   Until that time, 'Ulysses' was to be a story of the Jewish Dubliner, Alfred H. Hunter.  Bloom's speech as the Lord Mayor of Dublin in the Circe episode (U 15.1354-) overlaps that of Nathan because both are Jewish Freemasons.
 
 

  Freemasonry was an important sphere of the Jews in contact with the Gentiles, and eight out of some forty householders in a community belonged to Lodge 206 of the Irish Constitution in Dublin in 1770-1, one rising to the high office of Prince Mason, as Louis Hyman states in Jews of Ireland (52).  Freemasonry, with all its Hebraic and Templar evocativeness, bridged many social gaps for the Jews of Dublin.  Excluded from the freedom of the city and the guilds, and from the benefits of naturalization, the Irish Jew "was bound to be taken by the notion of belonging to a non-sectarian organization which forged a bond of brotherhood between him and men of different creed and assured him of the knowledge that the right hand of good-fellowship would be held out to him by his brethren of the 'mystic tie,' whatever was his creed"(Hyman 59).  Jews became prominent in the craft very soon after the so-called revival in 1717, but it was not until 1770 that Jewish names can be found in Masonic record in Ireland(Hyman 59).
  As Marilyn Reizbaum says in James Joyce's Judaic Other, Deasy's reference to "she [Ireland] never let them [the Jews] in" (U 2.442) should perhaps be read as a metaphor for Jewish exclusion from Irish society (itself a persecutory act) (38).¹⁷   This was historically true: in 1871 the Jewish population in all of Ireland was 258, and in 1881, 453, mostly of English and German extraction.  But by the year 1901, the estimate was 3,771, most of them (2,200) residing in Dublin, and in 1904, the estimate was probably nearly 4,800.¹⁸   The sudden influx at the turn of the century resulted from a wave of immigration, primarily from Russia, where Jewish persecution had become acute.  Until then Ireland had not let Jews in, and, with their coming in greater numbers, people began to take such attitudes toward Jews as were prevalent on the Continent, as Reizbaum notes(38).
  On January 12, 1904, a boycott against the Jews of Limerick was incited by Father John Creagh, who in a sermon condemned the Jews as usurers and invoked the myth of ritual murder--the blood libel.  The myth is alluded in Ulysses several times: U 6.770-72: Bloom thinks of the superstition that Jews kill Christian children in order to use their blood to make matzoth, the ritual unleavened bread eaten on Passover ;U 17.810-28: Stephen sings the ballad of Harry Hughes, in which a Jewish girl cuts off the head of a Christian boy.
  Father John Creagh began to attack the Jews in Limerick, January 1904, focusing on the Jews as usurers, and as a result the Jewish businesses were boycotted there for two years.  His attack was probably influenced by anti-Semitism during the Dreyfus Affair while he traveled to France.  The loss of livelihood forced some 75 percent of the Jewish residents in the Limerick Jewish community to leave, but the community reestablished itself during World War I after the hateful priest was finally forced out.
  Arthur Griffith supported the Limerick "pogrom," publicizing his anti-Semitism in his articles on the Boer Wars, in which he aligned the Jews with the "Imperialist English" (the United Irishman, July 15, 1899).¹⁹   Griffith also insisted that "the Three Evil Influences of the century were the Pirate, the Freemason and the Jew" (the United Irishman, September 23, 1899).²⁰   Griffith is employed in Ulysses essentially as a symbol of one branch of Irish nationalism.  As Dominic Manganiello notes in Joyce's Politics, just as "the citizen" could not tolerate Bloom's freemasonry, Griffith could not have done so either(173).  So when Molly tells us that her husband would be "those Sinner Fein or Freemasons," there is an implicit irony in the statement and Joyce underlines Bloom's secret activity.
  As Reizbaum notes, the Masonic Order and Judaism have been historically linked as, for example, secret societies that promote anti-Christian feelings (152 9n).  To suspect Bloom of Freemasonry is to metonymically identify him as Jewish, despite the fact that others quite remote from such associations are spied entering the place; as we have seen, Bloom sees the anti-Semitic Frederick Falkiner entering the Freemason Hall (U 8.1151).
  Toni L. Kamins insists that the Jewish communities of Ireland have never officially taken sides in the conflict between Ireland and England, but in practice Jews have been sympathetic to the Irish nationalist cause.²¹   During the 1916 Easter Rising, a number of Jewish homes in Dublin sheltered the rebels, and Robert Briscoe, Dublin's first Jewish mayor(1956-57; 1961-62), was a member of the Irish Republican Army(Kamins 120).
 
 

  It is well-known to Masons and Catholics alike that, while Catholics can become Masons, no good Catholics would.  That is, although the Masons permit Protestants, Jews, and Catholics to join their fraternity--indeed any believer in the "Great Architect of the Universe" may be accepted into the membership--the Catholic Church does not sanction Masonic activities, and would require any convert to dissolve his ties with the fraternity.²²   Such ties would be necessary for the Jews like Bloom who live in Ireland, feeling somewhat alienated from the Irish society.
  If we believe tradition, there are no ex-Masons; once a Mason, always a Mason, so Bloom is still a Mason by Masonic law.  He might simply stop practicing the craft, that is, he stops attending their meetings and functions.
  In the Circe episode Bloom and Stephen are conscious that Stephen is now twenty-two years old(U 15.3712-21).  Freemasonic order was "open to any man at least twenty-one years of age and in body a perfect youth."  As a mythical father and (imaginary) Master, Bloom seems to initiate Stephen, his mythical son to Freemasonry in the episode, as we have seen.  For Bloom's mythical paternity, Freemasonry is an important element as well as for his Jewishness.
  We cannot definitively identify Bloom as a Freemason, but we can presume that Joyce, who knew how the Jews of Ireland lived around 1904, satirically added a touch of Freemasonry to Bloom's character.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Notes

*This essay is based on the presentation "Odysseus as a Jewish Freemason"   for the "IASIL 2001:'Odysseys'" conference held at Dublin City University,    Ireland, August 1, 2001. Main Text: Joyce, James. Ulysses. London: The Bodley Head, 1986.     All citations from this are referred to in the following style: U x.y.     x = the episode number, y = the line number in each episode. Sub Texts:    1) Gen. ed. Groden, Michael. The James Joyce Archive (or JJA), 63 vols.        New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1978.    2) Joyce, James. "Ulysses": A Facsimile of the Manuscript I-III        (or Rosenbach MS).  London: Faber and Faber in association with The        Philip H. & A.S.W. Rosenbach Foundation,  Philadelphia, 1975.    3) The Little Review, vols. IV-VI (1918-21).  1 Cf. Eugene Coyle, Freemasonry in Ireland, 47.  2 Cf. Coyle, 65.  3 Letters, I, p.177.   4 Ulrich Schneider, "Freemasonic Signs and Passwords in the Circe Episode,"      304.  5 Frank Budgen, James Joyce and the Making of 'Ulysses' and Other Writings,    17-18.  6 Photo by Eishiro Ito, August 2001, Dublin.  7 Photo by Eishiro Ito, August 2001, Doneraile, County Cork.  This building is      still used as the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Ireland.  8 Cf. Marilyn Reizbaum, James Joyce's Judaic Other, 15, 28, 44-45, 95-97.  9 Cf. Schneider, 305-6. 10 Cf. Schneider, 306. 11 Cf. EB11: "... On the decease of the prince [the duke of Sussex] in 1843     the earl of Zetland succeeded, followed by the marquess of Ripon in 1874,     on whose resignation H.R.H. the prince of Wales became the Grand Master.     Soon after succeeding to the throne, craft, and was King Edward VII, ceased     to govern the Englishsucceeded by H.R.H. the duke of Connaught. From 1737     to 1907 some sixteen English princes of the royal blood joined the     brotherhood." 12 Cf. Mackey.  13 Cf. The Freemason's Companion, 23. 14 Cf. Coyle, 32. 15 Cf. Coyle, 72. 16 Cf. Richard Ellmann, James Joyce, 264-65.  Cf. also Nadel, 214. 17 Cf. Reizbaum discusses that "Joyce is not merely documenting Irish anti-    Semitism, but producing a specifically   Irish form of metaphoric identifica-    tion from certain historical apperceptions of Jews and Judaism, his thematics     of Jewishness"(38). 18 Cf. Huhner, "Jews of Ireland," 242.  In 1903, The Jewish population of Belfast     was some 450; about 400 in Cork. Limerick, Londonderry and Waterford had     each a synagogue and charitable organizations.  According to the census the     Jewish population was 2,633 in 1917; 2,127 in 1981; and by the year 2000, it     was down to 1,200. 19 Cf. Reizbaum, 39. 20 Cf. Reizbaum, 39. 21 Toni L. Kamins, The Complete Jewish Guide to Britain and Ireland, 120. 22 Cf. Patrick W. Conner, "Bloom, the Masons and the Benstock Connection."     James Joyce Quarterly, vol.17, no.2 (Winter 1980), 217.

 
 
 
 

Selected References

Albert, Leonard.  "Ulysses, Cannibals and Freemasons." A.D., vol.2, no.3     (Autumn 1951), 265-83. Anonymous.  The Freemason's Companion.  Cincinnati: John D. Caldwell, 1883. Benstock, Bernard.  "Leopold Bloom and the Mason Connection."  James Joyce     Quarterly, vol.15. no.3 (Spring 1978), 259-62. Budgen, Frank.  James Joyce and the Making of "Ulysses" and Other Writings.    Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Conner, Patrick W.  "Bloom, the Masons and the Benstock Connection." James     Joyce Quarterly, vo.17, no.2 (Winter 1980), 217-20. Coyle, Eugene, The Rev. P.P..  Freemasonry in Ireland.  Dublin: Seamus O'Doherty,     1928. Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce (new & revised ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press,     1982. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 11th ed. 29 vols(or EB11).  Cambridge, Eng.: The University     Press, 1910-11. Gifford, Don with Robert J. Seidman. "Ulysses" Annotated. revised ed.  Berkeley:     University of California Press, 1988. Huhner, Leon.  "The Jews of Ireland: An Historical Sketch."  Transactions of the     Jewish Historical Society of England, 5 (1902-5), 226-42. Hyman, Louis.  The Jews of Ireland from Earliest Times to the Year 1910.  Shannon:     Irish University Press, 1972. Jackson, John Wyse and Peter Costello. John Stanislaus Joyce: The Voluminous     Life and Genius of James Joyce's Father. London: Fourth Estate, 1997. Joyce, James. Gen. ed. Groden, Michael. The James Joyce Archive(or JJA), 63 vols.     New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1978. --------.  Letters of James Joyce, vol.I.  Ed. Gilbert, Stuart.  New York: The Viking    Press, 1957. --------.  Ulysses: A Facsimile of the Manuscript I-III (or Rosenbach MS).  London:     Faber and Faber in association with The Philip H.A.S.W. Rosenbach Foundation,     Philadelphia, 1975. --------.  Ulysses. The Little Review, vols. IV-VII (March 1918-Sep./Dec. 1920) --------.  Ulysses.  London: The Bodley Head, 1986. Kamins, Toni L.  The Complete Jewish Guide to Britain and Ireland.  New York: St.     Martin's Griffin, 2001. Keogh, Dermot.  Jews in Twentieth-Century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-Semitism and     the Holocaust. Cork: Cork University Press, 1998. Mackey, Albert G. A Lexicon of Freemasonry (or Lexicon).  London: Charles Griffin     and Company. Ltd., 1883. Manganiello, Dominic. Joyce's Politics.  London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980. Nadel, Ira B.  Joyce and the Jews.  Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989. Reizbaum, Marilyn. James Joyce's Judaic Other.  Stanford: Stanford University     Press, 1999. Schneider, Ulrich.  "Freemasonic Signs and Passwords in the Circe Episode."     James Joyce Quarterly, vol.5, no.4 (Summer 1968), 303-11. Schwarz, Daniel R. Reading Joyce's "Ulysses."  London: Macmillan Press, 1987. Stewart, K.J.  The Freemason's Manual.  Philadelphia: E.H. Butler & Co., 1851.