God, Guilt, and the Guinness: How Catholicism Haunted James Joyce (and His Characters)

When James Joyce wrote, he didn’t just tell stories—he exorcised demons. And one of his most persistent spirits? Catholicism. From the ghostly priest in Dubliners to Stephen Dedalus’s inner theological drama in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, religion isn’t just a background noise—it’s the entire damn soundtrack. One might say Joyce left the Church, but the Church never quite left him.

Catholicism: A Love-Hate-Liturgical Relationship ⛪️

Joyce was raised in a devout Irish Catholic family, and like many children of strict religious households, he grew up to write very long, complicated novels about it. He was educated by Jesuits (which means guilt and logic in equal measure) and for a while even considered becoming a priest. Spoiler alert: he didn’t. Instead, he became the literary world’s most stylish ex-Catholic, wielding irony like a holy sword.

Dubliners and That Creepy First Story ☠️

Let’s start with The Sisters, the opening tale of Dubliners. A young boy reflects on the death of Father Flynn, a priest who had clearly fallen from grace—both figuratively and (literally) physically, after a stroke leaves him paralyzed. There’s this eerie, almost rotting spiritual atmosphere. The priest’s room is dimly lit, he’s associated with broken chalices, and there’s talk of “gnomon” and “simony.” That’s not just name-dropping theological concepts; that’s Joyce hinting at religious decay, corrupted rituals, and the weight of spiritual confusion from childhood on.

The boy doesn’t cry for the priest. He doesn’t even seem sad. What he feels is... complicated. And isn’t that the most honest reaction to religion?

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Martyr 🎨✝️

Stephen Dedalus’s journey is one long Stations of the Cross, except he stops at “sexual awakening” before making it to “divine revelation.” He sins, he confesses, he fears eternal damnation—and then he studies aesthetics and yeets himself out of the church entirely.

But even as he rejects it, the Catholic framework is still there. The imagery, the structure, the drama—Joyce uses religious language to build his rebellion. It’s like quitting a job and then writing your resignation letter in the company’s email template.

Ulysses and the Modernist Mass 📚🕯️

By Ulysses, Joyce is doing his own thing—but the religious residue remains. Leopold Bloom isn’t even Catholic (he’s Jewish-ish), and yet he moves through a Dublin so steeped in Catholic tradition that it's impossible to escape. Funerals, prayers, superstitions—they’re all still part of daily life. Religion, in Joyce’s Dublin, is atmospheric. It’s the incense that lingers even when mass is long over.

Why the Bitterness? Why the Drama? ☘️💔

Joyce wasn’t just mad at the Church—he was mad at Ireland. He once said, “When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.”

Translation: he felt trapped.

Joyce’s personal experience with Irish society was... frustrating, to say the least. He saw his country as repressed, suffocating under the weight of Church, tradition, and petty nationalism. His mother was deeply devout, and when she begged him to make confession before she died, he refused. That guilt stayed with him, fermenting into literary fuel.

He left Ireland as a young man and never really came back—but in every book, he was still there, walking its streets, poking at its hypocrisies, mourning its missed chances.

For Joyce, Catholicism wasn’t just a religion—it was an identity he wanted to shrug off like a heavy, itchy coat. And yet, it stuck to his skin, shaping every sentence, every symbol, every haunting priest in a dark room.

“History is a Nightmare from Which I Am Trying to Awake” 🧠⏳

This line from Ulysses is one of Joyce’s most quoted—and for good reason. Spoken by Stephen Dedalus, it sums up the psychic weight of Ireland’s past: colonial trauma, religious oppression, cultural stagnation. For Joyce, history isn’t a source of wisdom—it’s a trap.

The “nightmare” is the cyclical pain of Irish identity: guilt passed down like heirlooms, martyrdom glorified, rebellion romanticized but never quite resolved. Trying to awaken means trying to escape that—through art, through exile, through storytelling.

And yet, just like with religion, history is still in his language, his characters, his Dublin. Joyce may be trying to wake up, but even in his dreams, he’s writing about the alarm clock.

Still Haunted, Still Hilarious

Joyce may have famously said, “I make open war upon it [the Catholic Church] by what I write and say and do.” But like every great ex, the Church is all over his work. In guilt, in irony, in metaphor, in trauma—and yes, sometimes even in affection. Because when you grow up Irish Catholic, no matter how far you run, God’s probably still sitting at the end of the bar, sipping a pint and judging you. Silently. But with meaning.