In 1854, at the age of thirty-eight, novelist and poet Charlotte Brontë married an Irish curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. Despite having lived most of her life in rural Yorkshire, she was half-Irish herself. So it was not surprising that the happy pair chose to spend their month-long honeymoon in Ireland. And it was quite a trip – a circular route from Dublin to the southwest of the country and back. 

They were married at 8 a.m. on 29 June. Following a breakfast for the few guests, they set off for Wales, before crossing by boat from Holyhead to Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) outside Dublin. A train ride brought them into the city, where they were met by Arthur’s brother and two cousins. Little did Charlotte know that one of them, Mary Anna, ‘a pretty lady-like girl with gentle English manners’, would later become Arthur’s second wife. 

Their next stop, for over a week, was the comfortable Georgian house in Banagher, County Offaly, where Arthur grew up. Charlotte was delicate, nursing a heavy cold, but she was very impressed with their kindness, writing to a friend, ‘I must say I like my new relations’. 

Coastal retreat in County Clare

The couple travelled down the River Shannon to Limerick City by boat and then by paddle steamer to Kilrush in County Clare before getting a carriage to the nearby seaside resort of Kilkee.

Kilkee, County Clare was a very popular spot for both Irish and English holidaymakers. The Illustrated London News recommended the town to its 19th-century readers as the ‘premier bathing spot in the United Kingdom’ – and it was dubbed both the ‘Queen of the West’ and the ‘Western Brighton’. Kilkee had a wonderful sheltered horseshoe bay for swimming, coves for diving, cliff walks and plenty of accommodation. Hogan’s Directory of Kilkee 1842 reported there were 230 houses and 24 lodging houses. English visitors would have felt at home with Victorian street names such as Albert Road and Victoria Place. 

Charlotte and Arthur stayed at the former West End Hotel. It overlooked the sea where she ‘never saw such a wild iron-bound coast with such an ocean view as I had not yet seen and much battling of waves with rocks as I had never imagined’. Arthur was equally impressed, describing Kilkee as a ‘glorious watering place, with the finest shore I ever saw, completely girded with stupendous cliffs – it was most refreshing to sit on a rock and look out on the broad Atlantic boiling and foaming at our feet’. 

In 1935, more than eighty years after Charlotte’s visit, the West End Hotel was proudly offering ‘Electric light in every room, spacious coffee room, separate tables’. But during her honeymoon, it wasn’t quite so salubrious. She wrote to her friend that ‘there is a good deal to carp at if one was in a carping humour. But we laugh instead of grumbling, for out of doors there is much indeed to compensate for any indoor shortcomings’. 

Sea bathing was highly fashionable during the mid-19th century, and Charlotte possibly observed intrepid ladies swimming on the beach in the women’s section. Bathing boxes were towed into the sea, allowing the ladies to change with modesty before plunging in. However, it is unlikely that Charlotte herself participated in this activity, as she was a petite woman who preferred to ‘look and be silent, covered with a rug to keep off the spray’.

A darker side of Kilkee

Kilkee was not all holiday mood, however. It suffered greatly during the Great Famine and its aftermath, starting in 1846. In fact, Clare had the highest number of evictions of any county in Ireland during that period.

Locals had to turn to the Kilrush Workhouse in the nearby town, which opened in 1842 to accommodate eight hundred people but often housed four to five thousand starving and sickly inmates. Charlotte was well-acquainted with such poverty. The school she and her sisters briefly attended, Cowan Bridge, served as the model for the dreadful Lowood School in her novel, Jane Eyre. She was also most likely aware that as recently as November 1850, the famine ship Edmond sank off the coast of Kilkee Bay while en route to New York, resulting in the loss of ninety-eight lives. 

Kilbaha, the most westerly village in County Clare, offers a significant glimpse into the lives of the local people during that era. Although Catholic emancipation was granted in 1829, its implementation was slow and fraught with challenges, highlighting the deep divisions and complexities of Irish society. The local Protestant landowner staunchly opposed the community’s efforts to build a church. In 1852, the resourceful Fr. Meehan constructed a mobile altar, a wooden box on wheels, which could be moved to the beach at low tide, as the seashore was considered no man’s land. Known as ‘The Little Ark’, it is now housed in the Star of the Sea Church in the village. 

Scenic Killarney and West Cork 

The next stop on Charlotte’s Irish tour was Killarney, County Kerry with its famous lakes and a rather hazardous trip by jaunting car through the Gap of Dunloe. At one rocky spot, the horse bolted and hurled Charlotte from the carriage. Despite her tiny delicate frame, she survived but after a few days in Glengarriff in West Cork and Cork City, she was keen to go back to Haworth where her father was ailing. The honeymoon had been a great success. Describing the scenery she said, ‘Some parts have exceeded all I ever imagined’ and in her letters to friends she hinted at her increasing fondness for Arthur, seeing him so valued among his relatives. 

It was to be a short-lived love match. By Christmas, Charlotte was expecting a child and desperately sick. Both she and her unborn baby died the following March, just nine months after her marriage to Arthur.

A literary festival marking the visit of Charlotte Brontë to the County Clare seaside town takes place in Kilkee each September. 

• ‘A Victorian honeymoon: Charlotte Brontë in Ireland’ is published in Anthology Volume 23. Read more features from this volume or buy it now.
• Browse more in culture.
• If you were inspired by this feature, we’d love it if you would share it!