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# The Sisters
- URL: https://www.rebindclassics.com/dubliners-the-sisters/
- Published: 2026-01-02T00:01:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:28:25.000Z
- Description: Banville reads 'The Sisters' as a boy's fascination with the Catholic Church and its dead priest, and finds reason to hope the boy breaks free.
- Author: Andrew Wessels
- Tags: John Banville on James Joyce's Dubliners, #video

John Banville walks you through "The Sisters," the first story in James Joyce's *Dubliners* and the first of three told by a boy. Filming inside Belvedere College, where the Jesuits educated Joyce at a special rate after his father spent the family money, he tells the story of the elderly Jesuit asked about the school's famous pupils: "Yes, not one of our successes." The boy here, 11 or 12, has befriended a retired priest, forcibly retired it seems, who taught him the responses to the Mass and has now died.

The turn is the title. The story is about the boy and the priest, yet it's named for the two sisters, whose conversation with the boy's aunt runs entirely in clichés, beautifully written ones, because Joyce loved reproducing how people speak. Banville hears in old Cotter's "something queer about him" the clawing grip of a religion that would direct a whole life. He leaves you hoping: the boy stands outside the mystery, not quite convinced, and may yet free himself.

## Transcript

Hello and welcome to "The Sisters." The first story in the collection, *Dubliners*, and the first of three stories narrated in the first person.

It is very much concerned with religion and in particular with the sickly attractiveness of the Catholic Church and its arcane rituals. Joyce was very young when he wrote it. He was 23, so he wasn't all that long out of school, you know, five, six years. And he had been educated by the Jesuits here in this building, which was Belvedere College. And before that in Clongowes College, which was also a Jesuit school. So he was steeped in religion, and Joyce was educated by the Jesuits, was very well educated. Some people would say, in fact, overeducated. The family couldn't really afford it. They could at the start. But Joyce's father progressively spent the family fortune, such as it was, and he put him into Clongowes College and then he had to take him out 'cause he just couldn't afford to pay for it anymore. And then in the way of Dublin and of John Stanislaus Joyce, he met a Jesuit priest from Belvedere College. And his son, young James Joyce, was taken into Belvedere and educated at a special rate by the Jesuits.

Their phrase is, "Give me the child at seven and I'll give you the man," you know, once they've got you, they've got you for life. And there's a nice story told of somebody talking to an elderly Jesuit from Belvedere College, and they're talking about the various famous people who had been educated here. And he mentioned Joyce and the Jesuit frowned and said, "Yes, not one of our successes."

So Joyce broke away from religion, but he was still steeped in religion and religious ceremonial. And in "The Sisters," narrated by a boy of I suppose 11, 12, we see his fascination with it. And he has befriended an old priest. This is rather mysterious because it's highly unusual. The old priest is retired. The implication is he's forcibly retired because he seems to have become deranged. But he's very good to the little boy. He teaches him about rituals of the church and teaches him the responses to the Mass and so forth. As the story opens, the old priest has died. And death in the Catholic Church is particularly strange phenomenon because the church essentially tells us that human life is worthless. You know, the brief moment that we're here on earth is of nothing 'cause we're going on to heaven, you know? So the boy is fascinated by it, but he's also terrified by it. The whole organization of the church, the way in which the church seizes upon its members and seeks to direct their lives.

And the title is slightly odd because the story is really about the boy and his relationship with the old priest. But as the story goes on, again, Joyce just loved listening to people and reproducing how they speak. And there's a conversation between the boy's aunt and the priest's two sisters, which is entirely in clichés, but beautifully written clichés. Joyce loved the cliché, and the little boy is sort of lost in all this. But there's a family friend, old Cotter, whom the little boy at the center of the story, he despises old Cotter. But old Cotter is saying to the boy's uncle that, you know, he never liked the boy's relationship to this priest. As he says about the priest, there was something queer about him. There was something uncanny.

And again, we have that awful clawing sense of being caught in this all-embracing religion, which would seek to direct the boy's life for the rest of his life. But we somehow see, we somehow intuit that the boy will break free from the church because he's essentially standing outside it, he's not quite convinced. He regards it as a mystery. And of course it is a mystery. But as an unappealing mystery and a mystery that doesn't quite compel him. So we have, as the story ends, we have hopes that the little boy will free himself and live fully and not be caught in the tentacles of the church.