Ivy Day in the Committee Room Summary & Analysis

The opening image, an ageing man tending a dying fire, shows Joyce’s view of current politics in Ireland: the old generation can’t keep the spirit of Nationalism alive. But the younger generation is even worse: O’Connor is skipping work because he doesn’t like the weather, and he’s mooching off the party’s dwindling energy (the fire). In short, the elders care about politics but are useless, and the young can’t be bothered to try. Joyce has chosen the date—Ivy Day, the anniversary of the great Nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell’s death—in order to juxtapose this dismal current reality with Parnell’s once-promising political past. The ivy leaf (Parnell’s symbol) brings this irony to the foreground when placed in the lapel of do-nothing O’Connor and lit by a dying fire.

As with tending the fire, Jack tries but badly fails to help his son. The drunk teenager stands in for Ireland’s youth, betrayed by the ignorant and useless generation above them. That a Christian education can’t improve the boy is the first indicator that religion is a fallible moral guide. Joyce expected his readers to know Parnell’s history and to remember that, after his scandalous affair went public, the Catholic Church pressured Nationalists to abandon Parnell, leading to his downfall. If Christian morals have done nothing for Jack’s son, how could they have been expected to put a whole political party on the right path? With a useless Church and dissolute political force, Joyce casts this question early on. O’Connor’s small talk and silence further shows his limpness.

Hynes’s immediate concern with money echoes O’Connor’s selfishness and sets the scene for subsequent gripes about their boss’s late payment. Joyce’s party men are clearly not as concerned with effecting political change as with fattening their pockets. At Hynes’s bidding, Joyce introduces a second light source: Jack’s candles. Earlier, the symbolic Nationalist fire showed only close-up details like O’Connor’s ivy leaf. The fire was so dim, Jack couldn’t recognize Hynes when he entered. But the candles’ clearer light now shows their full surroundings: a “denuded” place, empty and cheerless. This revelation implies that the party is nothing without its historic spirit, or without a strong leader like Parnell.

Hynes’s support of Colgan introduces discord into the story—after all, like Jack and O’Connor, Hynes works for Tierney, Colgan’s opponent. But Hynes hates Tierney’s careerism so much that he clearly prefers the opposition. This shows how fractured the Nationalist Party is. Hynes’s views aren’t treasonous; actually, he advances very reasonable opinions about political leaders’ need to be in touch with the working class. His fixation on “honour” and his rhetoric against “fat jobs” are hard to argue with. But the fact that he knowingly works for Tierney, the more corrupt of the two, is strange—his words seem principled, but his actions don’t match. The mention of a German monarch refers to the King of England, whose ancestry is German. In this moment, Hynes is emphasizing the King’s foreignness, suggesting that the King has no legitimate claim to rule over England, let alone Ireland.

The argument over Edward VII’s planned visit to Dublin brings the issue of Irish Nationalism (independence from England) to the center of the story. Any friendliness with the English monarch would undermine a cause these men are supposed to care deeply about. Tierney’s alleged plans show how far the Nationalist party has strayed from its founding principles. The morals of the party, according to Hynes’s “Tricky Dicky” rhetoric, have sunk, following the demise of Parnell, a famously steadfast leader. Hynes makes the comparison clear by pointing to his ivy leaf without a word. That nobody mentions Parnell by name, even as they clearly reference him, is odd. Perhaps this suggests that the Church’s ouster of Parnell has made people reticent to talk substantively about Parnell’s morals and legacy. .

The first thing Henchy does is ask about money, which emphasizes that all of these men are primarily concerned with money rather than political ideals. His strong rhetoric against Tierney—rife with colloquial slang—shows both that he is a captivating performer and, at the same time, another example of a disaffected Nationalist lacking the gumption to change things. Henchy is, essentially, an energetic but useless political worker. His misplaced energy adds to the overall feeling of paralysis in the story.

Henchy’s coldness when Hynes leaves shows the first real group tension. That he jumps into gossip suggests a deep paranoia concerning other people. Readers might wonder what he would say behind O’Connor’s back, for instance. Henchy’s rhetoric shows him to be a smooth-talking but somewhat illogical orator: “hillsiders and fenians” are Irish independence rebels, and “Castle hacks” are British loyalists working secretively against independence. So, after damning both anti- and pro-independence parties, Henchy’s insults don’t come across very effectively against Sirr, a British general who quashed an Irish rebellion in the previous century. If independence rebels are the problem, then what was wrong with a general who got rid of them? And if Henchy really hates the “little shoeboy” (i.e. the flatterer) Tierney, why does he interpret Hynes’s criticisms of the man as treachery?

Father Keon marks the second appearance of Christianity in the story. His ambiguous uniform and his comparison to an actor suggest fraudulence in the Church, questioning its moral authority. The Church is an especially dubious authority in the political realm, suggests Joyce, as Keon sketchily hunts for Fanning, the sub-sheriff, to settle an undefined “business matter.” That he looks for a government official in a political headquarters is indeed strange. This undue intersection of religion, politics, and government in the context of “Tricky Dicky’s” pub suggests a high level of corruption in political life. Henchy’s warm welcome suggests the men don’t much mind this corruption.

Again, as with Hynes, Henchy is all too happy to talk behind someone’s back, promoting the idea that every man is for himself. If Keon’s odd description as an “actor” gave readers any doubts as to his moral character, Henchy confirms them now by explaining that the Church has officially revoked Keon’s title. Whatever the Church’s moral failings, excommunication is serious. That this corrupt priest might still pretend to hold a position is further evidence for Joyce’s view that the Church had no business enforcing its rules on a perfectly strong leader like Parnell. Keon’s closeness with Tierney is made all the more ironic when O’Connor lights another campaign flyer on fire—a gesture of total unconcern for the state of the Nationalist party.

This passage suggests that these men are, in part, paid in stout (a kind of beer). This adds to the sense of misspent energy paralyzing Ireland’s political spirt. The gossip about Tierney’s corruption takes an ironic turn towards O’Connor; the line with which Henchy recalls being dismissed by Tierney in the pub (“That’ll be all right”) mimics O’Connor’s prior dismissal of Henchy’s questions (“I think it’ll be all right”). All the while, O’Connor joins in gossiping about Tierney’s crooked “deals.” This similarity in speech shows a lack of self-awareness in O’Connor and it suggests that his passive laziness is not much better than Tierney’s active corruption.

Yet again, the men’s joking about hiring each other and using city money to have extravagant meals shows a flagrant disregard for the political values they pretend to uphold. While they bash Tierney for buddying up to Fanning and various aldermen, here they are entertaining themselves with the same visions of grandeur. Jack is in laughing disbelief at the idea that government officials might save money, a view that contradicts his earlier longing for the “times” of Parnell’s day, when there was “some life in it.” The contradiction here shows that Jack’s faith in a certain moral standard is in fact empty.

Jack’s behavior toward the delivery boy is a perfect example of the paralysis that, as Joyce sees it, Ireland foists on its young. Here, Jack knowingly intoxicates the youth against his own principles (he himself knows how drinking destroys young boys because of what’s happening to his own son). Jack’s “grudging” awareness makes his perpetuation of Ireland’s ills all the more poignant. Even Henchy is in on it, remarking on this cycle without much concern. The speed with which Henchy, placated by alcohol, retracts his former insults against Tierney gives readers yet another example that these men have no real morals or values—they simply act in their own interest.

Crofton walks straight into the room just as Henchy is insulting him, which emphasizes the mistrust and dislike among these men, despite that they all belong to the same party. Crofton’s silence when Henchy greets him creates a sense of isolation between himself and the others. Henchy’s party trick of popping a cork by putting bottles in the fire helps develop his character as someone with plenty of charismatic energy to spare, but who is putting it to poor use. Since the fire symbolizes the Nationalist spirit of Parnell, Henchy’s bottle trick symbolically perverts the Nationalist spirit. This misspent energy gives the overall sense of paralysis in the party.

Crofton’s isolation from the group deepens as the narrator explains that he feels superior to the men and is allied with a different party altogether. That he, a Conservative, canvasses with the Nationalists against his wishes gives a clear sense of how dysfunctional and discordant the party has become in Parnell’s absence.

Henchy’s flexible principles remain on full display here as he recounts lying about Tierney’s party affiliation. The truth would have been to say Tierney runs on the Nationalist ticket, but Henchy will say anything to get a vote. He exemplifies the group’s infighting by laughing right in front of Crofton, his Conservative partner, about the time he lied to a Conservative on his own doorstep. The subject of Parnell moves from the story’s background to its foreground, as readers get a much better sense of how reluctant some of the men are to discuss him as a person. O’Connor tries to make a point about Parnell’s anti-English principles, but Henchy cuts him off mid-sentence, precluding any in-depth discussion of the man.

Lyons alludes to Parnell’s moral life, suggesting that Parnell’s public affair justly barred him from office. But the fact that any conversation about Parnell’s moral transgression ends here speaks volumes to the group’s unwillingness to discuss him as a person rather than as a figurehead. O’Connor’s insistence that “we all respect him” is verifiably false, since many people in Ireland did not respect Parnell. Though Crofton musters a kind word, Lyons is very clearly among Parnell’s moral detractors. It’s as if the subject of Parnell’s actual moral legacy is ironically off limits to those who claim to love him most. Despite the Church’s hopes that walking out on Parnell would focus the party’s attention on moral conduct, the men, paradoxically, can’t seem to discuss morals at all. They can’t even finish their sentences on the subject.

The fact that the men cannot say Parnell’s name—and instead call him “the Chief—underscores their collective inability to grapple with Parnell’s complicated legacy.  The euphemism “the Chief” suggests that the men discuss their own private version of the man: an abstract Chief, not Charles Stewart Parnell as a full, complex person. Henchy conveniently forgets that he once accused Hynes of being a spy, which further suggests that Henchy is spineless and ingratiating.

That Hynes recites his poem from memory shows how committed he is to the worship of Parnell. The elegy contains eleven stanzas of iambic tetrameter, a form especially suited to Irish drinking songs. Lines like “The green flag gloriously unfurled” are meant to sound like classic melodrama. Though the subject is obvious from the poem’s title, Parnell’s name does not appear until the final word. Until that point, readers get the sense that the elegy could be for any public figure at all. This omission echoes the moment earlier when Hynes pointed to his ivy leaf without naming Parnell, or O’Connor’s “Chief” euphemism—each shows a preference for remembering Parnell as a political figurehead, rather than remembering Parnell as a morally fallible human being. Accusations like “hypocrites,” “kiss” (a reference to Judas kissing Christ), “coward caitiff,” and “fawning priests” certainly refer to Parnell’s original critics, but these insults could also implicate the other characters in the story. To worship only a very limited aspect of Parnell (his political persona) without working to further his values is indeed a sort of betrayal.

After this moving poem, Joyce drives home the emptiness of the men’s patriotism by plunging the room into silence before and after their applause. Throughout the story, silence has signified the men’s disconnection from each other, due to mistrust, dislike, or having little in common. This silence after the poem, then, suggests that the men aren’t certain that everyone has the same opinion of Parnell, or that they’re at a loss for meaningful conversation. The fact that Lyons applauded an elegy for someone he doesn’t like suggests that his praise is disingenuous. Finally, when Crofton admits that the poem was good, Joyce is careful to paraphrase this praise, instead of giving Crofton a quoted line of dialogue. Elsewhere, Joyce almost never describes dialogue; to do this now is a sly commentary on Crofton’s disingenuousness, suggesting that perhaps the room got the impression that Crofton found the poem fine, even if that’s not precisely what he said. The story ends with the suggestion that the discord between these men will not ease—the political future of Ireland is no more secure than it was before Hynes read his poem.