Why does Aeolus have newspaper headlines?
“IN THE HEART OF THE HIBERNIAN METROPOLIS” is the first headline in Episode 7, “Aeolus”. Joyce breaks the episode into short sections under newspaper-style headings, matching its setting in a newspaper office, and the headlines get wilder as it goes on.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Episode 7, Aeolus. The opening heading of Aeolus, at Nelson's Pillar, where trams start.
IN THE HEART OF THE HIBERNIAN METROPOLIS
What it means in plain English
Hibernia is the Latin name for Ireland. The headline is grand; the scene beneath it is trams shunting.
Joyce added the headlines late, while revising. Later ones read like tabloid jokes.
Literary context
The episode is full of rhetoric and wind, for Aeolus, the Greek god of winds.
References
- Ulysses, Episode 7, “Aeolus”
- Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, Ulysses Annotated (revised edition, 1988)
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Questions readers ask
Were the headlines in the first draft?
No. Joyce added them when revising in 1921.
Related terms
The Freeman's Journal
The Freeman's Journal was a Dublin nationalist daily newspaper. Bloom sells advertising space for it, carries a copy all day, and visits its offices in Episode 7, “Aeolus”, which is set in the Freeman and Evening Telegraph building.
K.M.R.I.A.
K.M.R.I.A. stands for “kiss my royal Irish arse”. It is the editor Myles Crawford's reply, in Episode 7, when Bloom asks him to give Alexander Keyes a free puff in the paper to win an advertisement. Bloom quietly decides it is not a good moment to ask.
The Linati and Gilbert schemas
The Linati and Gilbert schemas are two charts Joyce made to explain Ulysses. They list each episode's Homeric title, hour, organ of the body, art, colour, symbol and technique. Joyce sent one to Carlo Linati in 1920 and lent another to Stuart Gilbert, who printed it in 1930.