Hooper, Patrick Joseph (1873–1931), journalist and senator, was born 1 June 1873 in Cork city, eldest son and third child of John Hooper (qv), journalist and politician, and Mary Jane Hooper (née Buckley). He had four brothers and five sisters. He joined the Freeman's Journal in Dublin in 1892 – the year in which his father became editor of its sister paper, the Evening Telegraph – and later transferred to the Freeman's London office, where he was assistant correspondent 1897–1912 and chief correspondent 1912–16. He was called to the English bar by Gray's Inn in June 1915. Appointed editor of the Freeman's Journal in August 1916, Hooper held that position till the Freeman ceased publication (19 December 1924). He was a director of the Freeman company in 1918–19.
The Freeman was the organ of the Irish party at Westminster, and Hooper's appointment as editor was part of a reorganisation of the newspaper effected by the party's leaders after the destruction of its premises in North Prince's St., Dublin, near the general post office, during the 1916 Easter rising. The Freeman had been in decline for years because of strong competition from the Irish Independent, launched by William Martin Murphy (qv) in 1905 at half the price of the Freeman and in a more popular format. By 1916 it had been reduced to ‘a sort of political bulletin circulating amongst already staunch friends of the party’ (anonymous memorandum in the Redmond papers). Hooper was given the task of reviving it.
Working closely with John Dillon (qv), MP, he enjoyed some initial success. New, well equipped premises were secured at Townsend St., Dublin; fresh capital was provided by overseas associates of the Irish party; and daily circulation was soon restored to the immediate pre-rising level of 30,000–35,000 copies and even rose to 40,000 in June 1918. Nevertheless, the newspaper continued to incur losses, and it was impossible for the management to keep it going once the Irish party had been defeated in the general election of December 1918. It was sold in October 1919.
The new owners were Martin Fitzgerald (qv), a Dublin wine merchant, and Hamilton Edwards (1872–1932), a British journalist who had moved to Ireland. They retained Hooper as editor, and the Freeman remained a voice of moderate nationalism in the turbulent years that followed. It was, however, often excessively partisan, especially in its support of the Anglo–Irish treaty of 1921. While Hooper sought to preserve editorial balance, he did not always succeed in resisting the demands of the proprietors – particularly Fitzgerald – for a more aggressive approach. The newspaper suffered many tribulations during these years: most notably, its suppression by the British military authorities (December 1919–January 1920) and the wrecking of its printing presses by anti-treatyites (March 1922). Moreover, in December 1920 Hooper was courtmartialled with Fitzgerald and Edwards for publishing a story of army brutality; each of the three was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment, but released after four weeks in Mountjoy jail because of the outcry in the British press.
After the Freeman's closure, Hooper became a correspondent for the Philadelphia Public Ledger and undertook other freelance work, sometimes under the nom de plume ‘Omega’. His financial circumstances were quite precarious until his election to the Free State senate in March 1927 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Fitzgerald, the former Freeman proprietor. He had previously stood unsuccessfully in the senate election of 1925. He served as an independent in the senate till his death (6 September 1931) and was elected vice-chairman in May 1931, defeating the government party's candidate. Apart from chairing a joint committee of the dáil and senate on officeholders' remuneration in 1929, his main endeavours as senator were to oppose aspects of two important government measures, the Censorship of Publications Bill, 1928, and the Juries (Protection) Bill, 1929. As regards censorship, Hooper had written in 1927 – appropriately for an old newspaperman – that ‘restrictions on publication have the habit of growing, and they should not be imposed except where absolutely necessary’ (Studies, xvi, no. 64 (December 1927)).
He married (1904) Margaret Ryan (1872–1951), an Irish-born nurse working in London (daughter of James Ryan, farmer, of Ballincollig, Co. Cork, and Catherine Ryan (née Buckley)). They had two sons and a daughter. Their eldest son, Sean (1906–61), was a prominent Dublin barrister. At the time of his death, Hooper was writing a biography of John Dillon, and his unfinished manuscript and notes survive in the Dillon papers in TCD.