In a committee room, Mat O'Connor, a canvasser for Richard Tierney, a candidate in an upcoming municipal election, discusses child-rearing with Old Jack, who tries to keep a fire going.

He proceeds to defend rival candidate Colgan's working-class background and maintains that Tierney, although a Nationalist, will likely present a welcome address at the upcoming visit of King Edward VII.

When Hynes points out that it is Ivy Day, a commemoration of Charles Stewart Parnell, a nostalgic silence fills the room.

The poem is highly critical of those who betrayed him, including the Catholic Church, and places Parnell among the ancient heroes of Ireland.

Joyce attributed the ideas for both "The Dead" and "Ivy Day" to Anatole France, although the latter story also owes something to his brother Stanislaus' account of their father at work during a Dublin by-election three years earlier.

Going back and forth with Richards, who initially agreed to publish his work, Joyce revised and omitted many things in the book to reach an agreement.

As Scott Klein wrote in an article about Joyce: "The Celtic Revival attempted to produce a new Irish culture in the absence of compelling political cohesion after the death of Parnell.