James Joyce’s short story “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” critiques the Irish political situation of 1902 as a means to explore the role of the Irish political class in the growing political and social crisis at that time. It is a cynical study in political apathy, moral torpidity, and disillusionment, and a warning against cultural and political nostalgia as a barrier to real change.

As a vignette, the story is notable for its lack of action or plot. Instead, it is a static scene that details the dialogue within the Committee Room as members enter. As such, its subject is the nature and purpose of this dialogue, and the role of political discourse at the time in Ireland. The story itself is structured almost entirely around dialogue, emphasizing the third-person limited point of view. The narrative gives only occasional phrases of exposition, such as describing Mr. Henchy as a “bustling little man” (94). As such, the narrator shows rather than tells, as if the reader is themselves an observer in the room, obliged to deduce the thoughts and feelings of the characters from their words alone.