One of the ways that James communicates that “Two Gallants” is not just a story about Irish men exploiting women, but also about the bigger picture of England exploiting Ireland, is by including subtle allusions to England’s colonial rule. This comes across in Joyce’s decision to reference specific places in Dublin that were tied to colonialism, like in the following passage:
[Lenehan] went into Capel Street and walked along towards the City Hall. Then he turned into Dame Street. At the corner of George’s Street he met two friends of his and stopped to converse with them […] One said that he had seen Mac an hour before in Westmoreland Street.
Joyce includes specific street names and locations assuming that his readers at the time would understand the deeper meanings. For example, George’s Street was the well-known site of an 1849 protest in which an Irishman flew a black flag with an uncrowned harp in order to protest British rule. Joyce’s decision to reference City Hall (located on Capel Street) also brings politics more overtly into the story—at the time in which he was writing, many of the Irish politicians in City Hall were seen as corrupt, prioritizing the needs of British leaders instead of the Irish people. All of these allusions are subtle nods to the ways in which England’s colonial rule negatively affected the lives of everyday Irish people.
