PB February-March 2026
February-March 2026 73
By Vincent Altman O’Connor
Joycean Blooms
A new way of reading
‘Ulysses’ may be found,
which will harmonise all
its symbols and references
to external reality
R
eaction to ‘On Whom Bloom’,
published in Village late last year,
has been fascinating. The notion
that Joyce’s fictional character,
Leopold Bloom, might be based, at
least in part, on Jewish Dubliners, Albert and
Mendal Altman, has piqued the curiosity of
many Joyceans.
Between 1877 and 1915, the Altmans
were Ireland’s most newsworthy Jewish
politicians. They were Irish nationalists and
were subjected to an unrelenting campaign of
antisemitic abuse, much of it reported in the
newspapers. Their rediscovery has provoked
scholars to reconsider their frame of reference
by re-reading Louis Hyman’s ’History of
Ireland’s Jews’ (1972).
Hyman cites the Altmans, but only in
passing. Quoting from the Minutes Book of
the Dublin Hebrew Congregation he writes
that, in 1880, the name of Albert Altman was
expunged from the roll “for having married out
of the pale of Judaism”.
The Minutes Book records in granular detail
centuries of Irish Jewish history, and Joyceans
will be anxious to consult this treasure trove.
They will be advised, however, that the
whereabouts of the Minutes Book is unknown
and rumour has it that this priceless tome was
destroyed. Is it any wonder then that Joyceans
are unaware of the Altmans and indeed of the
many other Irish Jews of the Victorian period,
some of whom hover over discrete moments
in ‘Ulysses’?
Some Village readers have drawn attention
to the fact that there is no mention of Altman
in Joyce’s letters. These are the letters that
Joyce himself chose to bequeath as part of
his legacy. Joyce, his family and the Joyce
Estate destroyed many letters and we can
only speculate as to what they might have
contained.
Joyce had every reason to be coy regarding
the real-life identity of Bloom. In ‘The Art of
Scandal’ (2009), Sean Latham writes: “Who
is the historical antecedent of Leopold Bloom?
Were he real, he would be the most defamed
character in the text, and his identification
would no doubt spark a major scandal”.
In his biography of Joyce scholar, Richard
Ellmann, Zackary Leader reminds us of his
subject’s fixation with the real-life identities
of Joyce’s characters. Nonetheless, Ellmann’s
groundwork as to Bloom’s prototype was not
his finest, and his equivocation on the subject
has been well-documented by Hugh Kenner,
Terence Killeen and Mark Mamigonian.
Ellmann’s severest critic was his brother
Erwin. Erwin witnessed Ellmann’s unease at
speculation surrounding Bloom’s real-life
model and in a scathing letter wrote to him,
“Do the new discoveries on the identity of
Bloom require you to alter and trim or is this a
vindication of the method which permits you
to fit any facts into the conclusion?”.
Certain Joyceans insist that Leopold Bloom
is an ‘import’. The Jew from Trieste, Italo Svevo
(Ettore Schmitz), is, without doubt, part of the
Bloom composite. That said, in ‘The Years of
Bloom’, John McCourt reveals that Joyce’s
brother Stanislaus did not consider… Svevo
to be Bloom’s principal model. Stanislaus
opined: “In an odd and rather amusing way…
Svevo had some part in‘Ulysses’. My brother…
needed various details to complete the
picture of the figure, the Jew Leopold Bloom.
It was Italo Svevo that supplied him with much
of the information he needed”.
Journalist, Frank McNally, argues that
Altman ticks an extraordinarily high number
of boxes that would have put him in Joyce’s
mind’s eye for the Bloom character. Others
suggest that this resemblance is purely
coincidental. Ironically, coincidence is a
major theme in ‘Ulysses’. Samuel Beckett
remarked that “to Joyce reality is a paradigm...
not a perception of order or of love...it is the
perception of coincidence”.
Mendal Altman is at the heart of an intriguing
cluster of coincidences. In the Cyclops episode
we read, “For nonperishable goods bought of
Moses Herzog, 13 Saint Kevin’s parade...and
delivered to Michael E. Geraghty, 29 Arbour
Hill…”.
Genealogist, John Grenham, discovered
that the electoral rolls show that Mendal lived
at 28 Arbour Hill, and also had an address at
12 Saint Kevin’s Parade. This extraordinary
coincidence prompts the question whether
Joyce deployed steganography (veiled
writing) in his work. Joyce scholar, Jolanta
Wawrzycka, writes: “Joyce’s method of re-
presenting Bloom’s thinking is in most
cases steganographic in nature: objects and
thoughts present themselves to Bloom but,
initially, they are far from clear to readers”.
Might Altman be the elusive key to
‘Ulysses’? In ‘Surface and Symbol’ (1959),
Robert Adams writes, “In all one’s thinking
about social reality in ‘Ulysses’ there glimmers
before one the hope that, if one digs a little
deeper or explores a little further, the special
fact will emerge, which draws everything
together...It is always conceivable that a new
way of looking at ‘Ulysses’ will be found, which
at a stroke will reduce to miraculous harmony
all the book’s symbols and all its references to
external reality. When that happens, the fellow
who has called it impossible will look very silly
indeed”.
‘The Life and Times of Albert Altman’ (2022)
by Neil Davison expands our knowledge of
Jewish Dublin, just as Luke Gibbons’ ‘James
Joyce and the Irish Revolution: The Easter
Rising as a Modern Event’ (2023) broadens
our understanding of Joyce’s politics. To quote
Richard Ellmann, “We are still learning to be
Joyce’s contemporaries, to understand our
interpreter”.
Pictured, James Connolly 2nd left, John Clancy (‘Long John Fanning’ in
Ulysses) 3rd left, Albert Altman6th left and his brother Mendal Altman 8thleft
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