A Portrait Amidst its Peers: Joyce and Catholic-Intelligentsia Fiction

This article places Joyce's work, specifically A Portrait, in the context of a novelistic genre, Catholic-intelligentsia fiction, that flourished in Ireland from the late 1890s to the early 1920s. It arose as a response to the perceived, confining culture of Catholic Ireland but also tallies with the notion that genres are generational, flourishing for around twenty-five years. The article does not argue for direct influence but for commonalities between Joyce's work and that of other writers, principally W.P. Ryan in The Plough and the Cross and Gerald O'Donovan in Father Ralph (1914), though that of Patrick McGill, Brinsley MacNamara, Seumas O'Kelly, Aodh de Blacam, Edward MacLysaght and Eimar O'Duffy is also considered. The main difference is that Joyce's hero is principally an artist/writer, whereas their heroes are primarily social activists intent on building a new Ireland, their creators only taking to novel writing to protest the frustration of plans for social transformation.