James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born on February 2, 1882, just south of Dublin in a wealthy suburb called Rathgar. The Joyce family was initially well off as Dublin merchants with bloodlines that connected them to old Irish nobility in the country. James' father, John Joyce, was a fierce Irish Catholic patriot and his political and religious influences are most evident in Joyce's two key works, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses.
As a result of their steadily diminishing wealth and income, the Joyce family was repeatedly forced to move to more modest residences. John Joyce's habitual unemployment, as well as his drinking and spending habits, made it difficult for the...
