Joyce was born in a Dublin suburb in February 1882 and grew up in Ireland. His parents, John and May Murray Joyce, were practicing Catholics, and James was the eldest of 10 children. A supporter of nationalism, John Joyce believed in Irish independence from the United Kingdom. While the Joyces were middle class, the family suffered a decline in economic status during the author’s childhood. John’s dependence on alcohol and poor financial decision-making led to his family’s increased poverty. Joyce initially attended a Jesuit boarding school but left when his parents could no longer pay the fees.

After graduating from University College, Dublin, Joyce moved to Paris and, after that, rarely visited Ireland. The rest of his life was mostly spent living on the continent of Europe, though much of his fiction remained rooted in Ireland. His attitude toward his home country and Catholicism was ambivalent throughout his life. Joyce met his life partner, Nora Barnacle, in Ireland in 1904. The couple had two children but did not marry until 1931 due to Joyce’s objections to the institution of marriage.

Joyce sought to portray his childhood home as he saw it in his fiction. His representation of Dublin’s social hierarchy in “The Boarding House” is informed by his own experiences.