Dublin, 1882–1904

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born at six in the morning on February 2, 1882. The exact time of Joyce's birth was one of the last things uttered by his father, John Stanislaus Joyce, before dying in December 1931. His son needed the information back in Paris so that an astrologer could properly read his horoscope. Joyce assigned a mystical significance to birthdays for his entire life. He pushed a printer in Dijon so hard to have a copy of Ulysses published on his fortieth birthday that Joyce scholars have spent the past eighty years arguing over what the final edition should look like. After slipping into a deep bout of depression while writing Finnegans Wake, Joyce considered handing the project over to another Irish writer because they shared the same birthday. Joyce originally planned to publish Finnegans Wake on his father's birthday as a token of filial affection. He missed the deadline. An advance copy was delivered to his own doorstep on February 2, 1939: Joyce was fifty-seven years old.

Although born and raised in Cork, John Joyce inherited some money from his father's properties and ended up in Dublin, where he met Joyce's future mother, Mary (May) Jane Murray. Together they had ten children (four sons, six daughters, and three miscarriages), and John Joyce supported his family for the first decade or so with a position as a tax collector.