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“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