Why did James Joyce call the style of Dubliners “scrupulous meanness”?

James Joyce adopted the style of "scrupulous meanness" for his short-story collection Dubliners to accurately reflect the bleak, claustrophobic world inhabited by his characters.1

This stylistic choice was intended to capture the pervasive sense of paralysis that Joyce perceived as constricting the Catholic society of Dublin at the time. By employing this precise and austere approach, Joyce contrasted his work with the idealized versions of Irishness that were common in much of the literature produced during the Irish literary renaissance.1