Ireland had known many centuries of economic and cultural impoverishment, political suppression, and religious conflict from the Middle Ages until Joyce's day, and these hardships were especially harsh for Irish Catholics. Though his fiction is set in contemporary times, the social situation of which Joyce complains had its roots deep in Irish history.
To one degree or another, the Irish had been considered subjects of the English throne since the twelfth-century reign of the English regent Henry II. At the time, a Norman named Richard Fitz Gilbert de Claire, or "Strongbow," had set himself up as a ruler in Ireland through an opportune marriage and political savvy, but King Henry quickly nipped such political ambitions in the bud by sailing to Ireland and demanding loyalty. Henry received it. English control of Irish life reached its peak seven centuries later, with the 1800 Act of Union, which abolished the Irish Parliament and made Ireland part of Great Britain, like Scotland and Wales. As a result, Ireland was governed directly from London, though it was nominally a separate nation. Under the Act of Union, Ireland would send 100 members to the House of Commons in London, and 32 men to the House of Lords.
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