In the opening story of Dubliners, Eliza, the sister of the just-deceased Father James Flynn, regrets that the family never fulfilled James’s wish to go visit the old house in Irishtown before his death. She explains to the young narrator and his aunt that “…he kept on saying that before the summer was over he’d go […]

Persia appears momentarily in “the Sisters” as the possible setting for a dream the narrator has the night he hears about Father Flynn’s death. Now modern-day Iran, Persia has had many iterations since the First Persian Empire in 550 BCE. Between that time, also known as the Achaemenid Empire, and 651 AD, it transitioned to the […]

Father James Flynn, the priest who dies in “The Sisters” had been an important person in the narrator’s life. The priest had taught the young boy “a great deal,” including proper pronunciation of Latin, all about Napoleon, and the intricacies of the liturgical year and the mass. The narrator’s description of his informal education by […]

Father Flynn’s death notice reveals that he had been parish priest at St. Catherine’s Church in Meath Street: “Two poor women and a telegram boy were reading the card pinned on the crape. I also approached and read: July 1st, 1895 The Rev. James Flynn (formerly of S. Catherine’s Church, in Meath Street), aged sixty-five […]

Near the end of “The Sisters,” we learn from Eliza that she, her brother Father James Flynn, and their other sister Nannie are all originally from Irishtown: “But still and all he kept on saying that before the summer was over he’d go out for a drive one fine day just to see the old […]

This week’s featured place is Great Britain Street, where the priest of the “The Sisters” lives (or is lying dead, rather). The street is particularly interesting in that shortly after the 1891 death of Charles Stewart Parnell, a leading Irish Nationalist, the name was changed from “Great Britain” to “Parnell” Street. This booklet published by […]