

“OMNIUM GATHERUM”
237
serve the archbishop rather than the common people
—
he
embraces the powerful, not the unrepresented. The organic
intellectual who ought to play the role of a “permanent
persuader” (Gramsci, 1971: 10) is, ironically, persuaded, or
enlisted, by the powerful.
As mentioned previously, Hynes also has a brief
encounter with the foreman. A reporter and staunch admirer
of Parnell, Hynes first appears in “Ivy Day in the Committee
Room,” in which he supports the working-class Colgan in the
municipal elections. Unlike the other canvassers who despise
their candidate, Tierney, yet solicit votes for him for the sake
of money, Hynes defends Colgan when he is slighted: “Hasn’t
the working-man as good a right to be in the Corporation as
anyone else . . . ?”; “He goes in to represent the labour classes.
This fellow you’re working for only wants to get some job or
other” (Joyce, 1996: 121). Hynes supports Colgan, it seems,
not because he is paid, but because he believes in the candidate
and his ideas. O’Connor speaks favorably of Hynes: “Ah, poor
Joe is a decent skin” (124); “I think Joe Hynes is a straight
man. He’s a clever chap, too, with the pen” (125). His
comparative decency notwithstanding, Hynes is as penniless as
the others. “’Usha, poor Joe!” O’Connor sighs, “he’s hard up
like the rest of us” (124). In
Ulysses
, Hynes appears to be as
stone-broke as ever, and we learn that he has borrowed money
from Bloom. Upon seeing him in Nannetti’s reading closet,
Bloom hints at the three-shilling debt: “If you want to draw
the cashier is just going to lunch” (1986: 99). Hearing that, the
debtor “hurried on eagerly towards the
Freeman’s Journal
office” (99)
—
without the slightest acknowledgement of the
creditor’s hint. Bloom reflects on his unsuccessful attempt:
“Three bob I lent him in Meagher’s. Three weeks. Third hint”
(99). We later learn in “Cyclops” that Hynes has received his
remuneration, but instead of paying off his debt, he treats the
Citizen and the I-narrator to several rounds of drinks at Barney