The fall of Parnell seemed to herald yet another decline in the Joyce family fortune, and it was not long until financial reversals and a series of domestic moves made it impossible for Joyce to return to Clongowes Wood. Nonetheless, in 1893, through his father's contacts, Joyce was able to enroll in an equally prestigious day school, Belvedere College. Joyce attended school there until he was sixteen, distinguishing himself as a school leader, thespian, and award-winning essayist, whose poems and essays were published in the school magazine.
For the most part, Joyce's school years seem idyllic, but two significant events occurred when he was fourteen which helped shape the boy's spiritual and creative future. First, Joyce was admitted to, and later became the prefect of, the school's Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and second, he had his first sexual experience — with a Dublin prostitute; this paradoxical turn of events occurred within just a few weeks of each other. (Joyce's attempts to reconcile the trinity of women, sex, and creativity are woven throughout his works.) Two years later, Joyce entered University College in Dublin.
