Who is the man in the macintosh in Ulysses?
The man in the macintosh is an unnamed stranger in a raincoat whom Bloom notices at Paddy Dignam's funeral in "Hades" (Episode 6). He turns up again several times during the day. Joyce never reveals who he is, and he is one of the book's most famous unsolved puzzles.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Several episodes. Bloom, thinking to himself at Glasnevin Cemetery during Paddy Dignam's burial.
Now who is that lankylooking galoot over there in the macintosh?
What it means in plain English
At the graveside Bloom counts the mourners and notices a tall, thin man in a macintosh (a raincoat) whom he does not know. Afterwards, the reporter Joe Hynes is taking down the names of the mourners for the newspaper. Bloom mentions the man in the macintosh, and Hynes, thinking that is his name, writes down "M'Intosh". The stranger appears in the evening paper's list of mourners under that name.
He comes back again and again: in "Wandering Rocks", in "Nausicaa", in the chaos of "Circe", and in "Ithaca", where Bloom is still wondering who he was. Each time he is just at the edge of the scene.
Readers have suggested many answers: a ghost, Death, a former lover of Molly, Joyce himself, or simply a stranger. The book gives no proof for any of them.
Literary context
The macintosh man shows that Ulysses is full of things a single day does not explain. Real life has strangers we never identify, and Joyce lets the mystery stand.
The newspaper mistake that turns him into "M'Intosh" is also a small joke about how stories, and identities, get made by accident.
References
- Ulysses, Episodes 6, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16 and 17
- Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, Ulysses Annotated (revised edition, 1988)
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Questions readers ask
Does Joyce ever reveal who the man in the macintosh is?
No. He is never identified in the novel.
Where does the man in the macintosh first appear?
At Paddy Dignam's funeral at Glasnevin Cemetery, in Episode 6, "Hades".
Why is he called M'Intosh?
Bloom refers to "that fellow in the macintosh" and the reporter Joe Hynes mistakes it for a surname, so he is listed in the paper as M'Intosh.
Related terms
Leopold Bloom
The central character: a kind, curious advertising canvasser whose wanderings give the novel its shape. Joyce's modern Odysseus.
Met him pike hoses (metempsychosis)
"Met him pike hoses" is Molly Bloom's mangled version of "metempsychosis", a Greek word for the transmigration of souls: the belief that a soul is reborn in another body after death. She asks Bloom what it means in "Calypso" (Episode 4), and the phrase becomes a running joke and a key idea.