Joyce's uncle charles stuart parnell was the leader of the irish parliamentary party. The idea was they would secure home rule for ireland, rather than from westminster in the u k. And joyce saw a lot of this going on, and he wrote essays against it - callt the day of the rabble. He wanted to bring a more modernt yates or gregory, or being too nastalgic and sentimental. In fact, they would often write about this amazing irish peasantry. That was the authentic irish person. They said there was nothing amazing about the squalor of loral ireland either.