Turn-of-the-Century Dublin

The world of Dubliners is based on the political and social climate of Dublin around the closing years of the nineteenth century, when Joyce was growing up. The author used Dublin as the artistic canvas for all his major writings, and each street name, political reference, or mention of different regions of Ireland holds a particular significance to what he is communicating.

Dublin was the capital of Ireland, although Belfast was to temporarily outgrow it in size by 1900, and the entire island was under strict English rule (a regime that would lead to nearly a century of violent conflict). At the heart of the economic and political hardships of the era, Dublin had a majority Catholic population, most of whom desired home rule for Ireland. These "Nationalists" were deeply disillusioned after the disgrace and death of the formerly championed Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell, who...