Was Leopold Bloom a Freemason?

— “He doesn’t buy cream on the ads he picks up. You can make bacon of that.”

After Leopold Bloom finishes his lunch at Davy Byrne’s moral pub in “Lestrygonians,” Ulysses’ eighth episode, he steps away from the bar. The only other two people in the pub, patron Nosey Flynn and proprietor Davy Byrne, strike up a gossipy back-and-forth about ol’ Bloom. True to his name, Nosey is up to date on Bloom’s personal business. He saw Bloom recently buying Molly a pot of cream, an awfully pricey treat for someone making a meager ad canvasser’s income. Naturally, Nosey knows there’s more to this picture, informing Byrne that Bloom is “in the craft,” meaning that Bloom is a Freemason and as such they “give him a leg up,” allowing him to bring home the proverbial bacon (and cream).

So, is Leopold Bloom a Freemason? The Citizen certainly thinks so, snapping, “What’s that bloody freemason doing… prowling up and down outside?” in the “Cyclops” episode. More importantly, Molly also thinks so, recalling in her own soliloquy that she got fired from a singing gig when “...the jesuits found out he was a freemason…” and that his days are likely numbered at the Freeman’s Journal “on account of those Sinner Fein or the freemasons.” Molly is a better source than the Citizen, but is there any other evidence to Bloom’s membership in the Craft elsewhere in Ulysses or is it all just idle gossip?

Bloom is not now, nor has ever been, a Freemason

Nosey’s assertion might sound like an idle rumor at this stage of the book. We’ve had unfettered access to Bloom’s mind for dozens of pages, learning about his strained relationship with his wife, his concerns about his daughter, the anguish of losing his son, his various money making schemes, and even his thoughts on vegetarianism and the mysteries of parallax. Yet in all those meandering thoughts, he never once thinks of himself as a Freemason. In “Hades”, he ponders at one point if Catholic convert Tom Kernan might be a Mason (“Secret eyes, secretsearching. Mason, I think: not sure.”), but thinks nothing of his own membership status. Also, if Bloom were a Mason, wouldn’t he know whether or not Tom Kernan was, too? Is he chasing gossip like Nosey?

Tom Kernan isn’t the only purported Mason that Bloom spots in the wild, though. As Bloom passes through Molesworth St. on his way to inspect the statues’ buttholes in the National Museum at the end of “Lestrygonians”, he notes, “Sir Frederick Falkiner going into the freemasons’ hall.” Falkiner was a real person who was a real Freemason, as well as a prominent judge and raging antisemite. Though Bloom incongruously thinks of Falkiner as a “wellmeaning old man,” he doesn’t make much of Falkiner’s Masonic connections. In “Lotus Eaters”, Bloom also notes Edward VII as a Freemason: “Never see him dressed up as a fireman or a bobby. A mason, yes.” Likewise, he doesn’t offer any additional comment beyond this basic fact. This would seem to be an open and shut case, but let’s at least entertain the opposing viewpoint.

Bloom is a Freemason

It is notoriously impossible to prove a negative; a lack of thoughts on a given topic doesn’t make it irrelevant or untrue. Many a day passes in my own life where I don’t think about the Catholic Church, a group I’m nominally a member of, but that doesn’t mean my parents never had me baptized.

While the Freemasons are famously tight lipped as a secret society, but certainly Bloom would be free to think openly within his own inner monologue. Bloom is given ample opportunity to ponder his membership in the Freemasons or his fellow Masons, but never really follows that particular rabbit trail. Scholar Daniel Schwarz, in his book Reading Joyce’s Ulysses, argues that Bloom’s personal history with Freemasonry is largely confined to his subconscious, hence why the majority of Masonic imagery in Ulysses bubbles up in the “Circe” episode. Just because this episode is hallucinatory doesn’t mean we should write it off entirely. It’s possible that Bloom has so thoroughly and successfully repressed this secret knowledge that it only reveals itself in the most extreme situations.

The Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Ireland Library, 17 Molesworth St., (Google Street View, 2024)

The strongest point in favor of this argument is that Molly thinks her husband is a freemason. She knows him better than anyone and is the most likely person apart from Bloom himself to know about his secret affiliations. Her wording is particularly telling in her first mention of Bloom’s Masonic membership: “...the jesuits found out he was a freemason…” Not that he “might be” or they “thought he was” but that “he was.” She doesn’t refute the point either; she just seems really annoyed at Bloom for associating with a group that tarnishes their family’s reputation. Interestingly, Molly’s thoughts imply that Bloom’s Masonic membership makes their financial situation more precarious rather than “gives him a leg up” like Nosey says. It seems unlikely that Molly would include this comment for any reason other than that her husband was a Freemason.

Next, the Freemasons allow Jews to join; they only require that members have a belief in some higher power, but otherwise don’t discriminate based on religious affiliation. Dublin society in 1904 was not so welcoming. Any deviation from the Catholic norm was grounds for suspicion, a fact that the Blooms are all too aware of. Bloom is a practical man, first and foremost, and if he believed that he could join a secret society that would not only protect him and his family but also give them a leg up in society, it would be illogical for him not to join.

Finally, it’s not totally implausible that Bloom would be both a Mason and unaware of Tom Kernan’s affiliation. In the paper “Joyce and the Two-Headed Octopus of ‘Judéo-Maçonnerie,’” scholar Anne-Marie D’Arcy points out that there were more than a dozen Masonic organizations in Dublin in 1904, and they didn’t necessarily communicate with one another. It’s possible for both Bloom and Kernan to be members of separate lodges and not know for certain about one another’s membership status.

Bloom was a Freemason

I think the most likely possibility is that Bloom was a Freemason at some point in the past but is no longer an active member. There is both a simple explanation for this and a more complicated one. The simple answer is he did it for love. Bloom converted to Catholicism to marry Molly. As there was deep animus on the part of the Catholic Church against the Freemasons, particularly in this era, he would have had to cease his Masonic activities for the Church to accept his conversion. You don’t really quit the Masons - once a Mason, always a Mason. However, if Bloom was willing to convert to Catholicism to marry Molly, surely he would have stopped attending Masonic lodge meetings as well.

The more complicated explanation is that Bloom got kicked out of the Freemasons due to criminal activity. Bloom’s involvement in a scam selling fake Hungarian lottery tickets is alluded to here and there, though never discussed at length (much like Bloom’s Masonic connections); we just know it went really, really badly. Based on an offhand comment of Bloom’s in “Lestrygonians,” it’s clear there is some connection between the lottery ticket scam and the Masons:

“Windy night that was I went to fetch her there was that lodge meeting on about those lottery tickets after Goodwin’s concert in the supperroom or oakroom of the Mansion house.”

Dermot and Kelly, in the oakroom of the Mansion House with the former Lord Mayor of Dublin

It’s an intriguing little detail tucked into a passage where Bloom huffs and puffs about the conceited tenor Bartell D’Arcy, who had eyes for Molly. First of all, the lodge meeting took place at the Mansion house, presumably the one belonging to the Lord Mayor of Dublin. Maybe Bloom does have some connections, via the Mason, to the upper echelons of Dublin society? Or at least used to? This detail is tantalizingly vague.

Quitting the Masons is not really possible, as mentioned above, and even being kicked out of the Masons is extremely rare. One reason for expulsion, though, is committing a felony. So, how serious was this Hungarian lottery ticket deal? It’s hard to tell from the passage in “Lestrygonians”, as Bloom immediately moves onto other avenues of thought. We readers are left to speculate wildly, not unlike Nosey, Davy and, later, the boys in Barney Kiernan’s. Bloom’s thoughts might move on quickly because the Hungarian lottery ticket incident was humiliating, and he has a habit of quickly shutting down memories that are too painful (see also: many, many of his thoughts about Blazes Boylan). Conversely, it could have just been an unremarkable event, a way to mark time in his memory and nothing more. However, based on Molly’s recollection in “Penelope,” it does seem like the tickets caused the Blooms a lot of trouble:

“...either hes going to be run into prison over his old lottery tickets that was to be all our salvations…”

The patrons of Barney Kiernan’s pub in “Cyclops” are certain something scandalous was afoot with these Hungarian lottery tickets. As Bloom seeks contributions for the Dignam family, the anonymous narrator can’t help but suspect him:

“He was bloody safe he wasn’t run in himself under the act that time as a rogue and vagabond only he had a friend in court. Selling bazaar tickets or what do you call it royal Hungarian privileged lottery. True as you’re there. O, commend me to an israelite! Royal and privileged Hungarian robbery.”

It’s not clear from Molly or Leopold’s own inner monologues if he was in on the scam or got duped into handling some illegal tickets. This distinction is irrelevant in Barney Kiernan’s as the barflies have already convicted Bloom in their minds. Worse still, they smell a conspiracy, suspecting that Bloom “had a friend in court” (Judge Falkiner the Freemason?) that spared him conviction for his nefarious deeds. Bloom is referred to directly as a Freemason by the Citizen and more indirectly as “the prudent member” by Joe Hynes, merely insinuating that Bloom is a Freemason. In the paper “Fact, Fiction, and Anti-Semitism in the ‘Cyclops’ Episode of Joyce’s ‘Ulysses,’” scholar Margot Norris notes that the barflies identify Bloom first and foremost as “Freemason.” Not as a Jew or even by his name, but as a “bloody Freemason.” This is his foremost identity in their minds.

The Barney Kiernan barflies are incredibly unreliable narrators, though. Bloom could have done exactly what they have accused him of - sold fraudulent tickets, gotten caught, and then was bailed out by his Mason buddies. Bloom wasn’t technically convicted of a felony, but the bad optics of the incident may have been enough for the Masons to distance themselves from Bloom. It would certainly explain Bloom’s current aversion to placing bets.

Interestingly, the details about the Hungarian Lottery scam did not appear in the Rosenbach manuscript of Ulysses, but were included in the later 1919 version that appeared in the Little Review. Additionally, Joyce reached out to Frank Budgen late in the process of writing Ulysses asking for sources on British Freemasonry. He clearly had Freemasons on the brain while writing his novel, and it can be inferred that the inclusion of the Hungarian Lottery scam was a subtle emphasis of a connection between Bloom and the Freemasons, though the details of the affair are mostly unknown to us readers.

On the other hand, what is evident is that Bloom is more than willing to invoke the symbols of the Freemasons in order to get out of a jam. This is most apparent in “Circe.” For example, when Bloom is dragged in front of the hallucinatory court to answer for his many alleged crimes, Bloom conspicuously uses Masonic signals of distress:

“Scared, hats himself, steps back, then, plucking at his heart and lifting his right forearm on the square, he gives the sign and dueguard of fellowcraft.”

And:

“He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.”

If Bloom is willing to deploy his Masonic ties as a defense in his subconscious, it’s not unthinkable he might have done so when facing danger in the outside world as well. He may even harbor guilt over leveraging his connections to avoid punishment for actual crimes. Later in the episode, in order to save Stephen from the wrath of Bella Cohen, Bloom thinks on his feet:

“But he’s a Trinity student. Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (He makes a masonic sign.) Know what I mean? Nephew of the vicechancellor. You don’t want a scandal.”

We readers know Bloom is bluffing, but his knowledge of Masonic signs lends credibility to Stephen’s false credentials. In any case, it’s enough to deliver Stephen from Cohen’s brothel. There are plenty of other Masonic images in “Circe” in addition to these. For a more comprehensive discussion, I recommend reading Ulrich Schneider’s paper “Freemasonic Signs and Passwords in the ‘Circe’ Episode.”

So, if our hypothesis is correct and Bloom is now a rare ex-Mason, he is more than willing to deploy a potential connection to a powerful secret society to save both himself and the son of an acquaintance. He seems to mainly use his powers for good.

Freemason just means “Jewish”

The conspiratorial beliefs of the Barney Kiernan barflies did not arise in vacuum. By 1904, the Catholic Church had been waging a decades-long campaign against the Freemasons. This is one reason the Freemasons would be viewed as a particularly unsavory organization to the Catholics of Dublin and why Bloom would need to cease his Masonic activities at conversion. D’Arcy explains at length the concerted push, particularly in France, to promote the idea that Freemasons were working behind the scenes to destroy the Catholic Church, particularly its monasteries and other religious orders.

As with so many conspiracy theories, it wasn’t a great leap to add the Jews into the mix. Many Roman Catholic officials openly warned that the forces of judéo-maçonnerie had teamed up in a conspiracy to remove Roman Catholic officials from power and to achieve (gasp!) a separation of Church and State, an idea promoted by Pope Leo XIII in an 1884 encyclical entitled Humanum Genus. I don’t know if a conspiracy of Jews and Freemasons “went all the way to the top,” but the conspiracy against them certainly did. In France, much of this conspiracy mongering came to a head in the Dreyfus Affair and also the humiliation of antisemitic journalist Édouard Drumont at the hand of satirist Léo Taxil (you can read about it here), the echoes of which are found in Ulysses.

In Ireland, Father John Creagh of Limerick preached that the Jews, in league with the Freemasons, would certainly drive out the Catholic religious orders if allowed to have any power. This rhetoric culminated in a 1904 pogrom against Jewish businesses in Limerick, driving the majority of the Jewish population out of that city. The same rhetoric was taken up by secular figures as well. Catholic identity was strongly woven into Irish Nationalism, which was in part a struggle by Irish Catholics against the Protestant ruling class. Writing in the pages of his own United Irishman newspaper, Sinn Fein founder Arthur Griffith railed against the three evil influences facing Ireland: the pirates, the Freemasons, and the Jews. This makes the barflies’ claim that Bloom is in league with Arthur Griffith absurd on its face, as Bloom would represent two-thirds of the great evils. As far as I know, Bloom is not a pirate.

To turn our focus back to the boys in Barney Kiernan’s, when the Citizen calls Bloom a “bloody freemason,” I think he really just means “bloody Jew.” The idea of sinister, conniving Freemasons manipulating everything behind the scenes is pretty similar to the stereotypes of Jews. Bloom is suspicious to the barflies because he is Jewish, but his Judaism necessarily implies he is also in league with the Freemasons, regardless of whether he really is or not. D’Arcy points out that Bloom’s sobriety is a point of contention not strictly because of his temperance, but because it’s a non-Christian temperance. If Bloom were a follower of Fr. Mathew, he’d still be annoying, but he might not be the subject of a hate crime. Instead, Bloom’s temperance is a clue he’s hiding something. Martin Cunningham, in the same scene, comments that he knows Bloom is under surveillance by the Dublin Metropolitan Police. If Cunningham is correct, then it likely has more to do with these conspiratorial suspicions than any Hungarian lottery tickets.

An additional intriguing point brought up in D’Arcy’s article is that understanding the widespread cultural antipathy for Jews and Freemasons in Ireland at the time solves another long-standing mystery of “Lestrygonians”: what the hell Æ is talking about when he passes Bloom in the street:

“—Of the twoheaded octopus, one of whose heads is the head upon which the ends of the world have forgotten to come while the other speaks with a Scotch accent. The tentacles…”

D’Arcy points out that an octopus was used in the 19th century as an antisemitic symbol - a hideous grotesque squeezing the globe in its untrammeled lust for power. A two-headed octopus in this quote would represent the twin dangers of the Jews and Freemasons, once again interlinked. This point is driven home when Æ notes one of the heads “speaks with a Scotch accent,” a reference to Scottish rite Freemasonry. The octopus will later reappear in “Circe” heralding the second coming of Elijah and adorned in “gillie’s kilts, busby and tartan filibegs,” alluding to Edward VII’s style of dress. Edward VII was the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England. The king’s full name was Albert Edward, which Bloom erroneously guesses might be what Æ’s initials stand for, deepening the connection.

The question of Bloom’s Masonic affiliation remains an open one among scholars. I think that Joyce purposely included Masonic imagery in Ulysses for a reason. It may have been due to Joyce internalizing antisemitic beliefs common in his era about a nefarious connection between Jews and Freemasons. He may have just been fascinated with the allure of a secret society. Whatever the reason, the trail of breadcrumbs Joyce has left us intentionally draws a link between Bloom and the Freemasons. The scant evidence allows room for our imagination to go wild as readers.

Bloom is not now, nor has ever been, a Freemason

Bloom is a Freemason

Bloom was a Freemason

Freemason just means “Jewish”

Further Reading:

Ulysses & The Odyssey: Scylla & Charybdis

Is Blazes Boylan really the worst man in Dublin?