OPINION (AN COLÚN): A famous author’s happy stay in Banagher

WHEN Charlotte Brontë arrived in Banagher in 1854 she was 38 years of age. She had only nine months to live, but of course like all of us (unless we get a medical diagnosis) she did not know that her time on earth was short. She was very happy during her stay in Banagher because it was her honeymoon and she was in love.
Over the years the famous novelist had received proposals of marriage from several men but had turned them all down. She had experienced intense feelings for a Belgian professor when she was living and studying in Brussels in her mid 20s but he was married, and while he had feelings for the attractive English woman he probably didn’t want to go through the mental affliction and scandal of a divorce.
In other words, like so many of us, Charlotte’s love life had not been ideal and as she progressed through her thirties she thought being a spinster for life was a distinct possibility (eventually becoming an “old maid” as she put it in a letter to a friend). But then a clergyman from County Antrim came into her life and they grew very fond of one another.
Arthur Bell Nicholls worked as a Curate for her father Patrick in the village of Haworth in Yorkshire. Patrick was originally from Down and for a while he strongly disapproved of Nicholls, primarily on the grounds that he wasn’t earning enough money. The curate’s annual income was a very small 90 pounds per annum (which is about 12,000 pounds in today’s money). Charlotte’s Jane Eyre had received widespread acclaim but it wasn’t bringing in enough money to make her feel at ease with the financial side of life. Nonetheless, Charlotte and Arthur both realised that companionship and affection were invaluable things and they were determined to seize them. Patrick eventually gave in.
They were married in Haworth and spent a couple of weeks honeymooning in Ireland. The reason they stayed in Cuba Court House in Banagher for a fortnight was because Arthur’s relatives lived there. Aunt Harriette Bell and her family lived in the house. Arthur and his older brother Allan had grown up there, as foster children. They were educated in Banagher’s Royal Free School (Sir William Wilde, father of Oscar Wilde, and William Bulfin, author of ‘Rambles in Erin’ were both educated in this school).
The Nicholls stayed in the town from Friday July 7th until Tuesday July 18th, 1854. Charlotte was emotionally happy but physically she hadn’t been the best for several days, suffering from a bad cold and feeling tired. Now she began to quickly recover. Being a lover of nature she went for walks in the beautiful Irish countryside beside the stately Shannon River. She attended the Sunday Service in the nearby St Paul’s Church of Ireland, which was probably a pleasure rather than a chore because religion for her was genuine rather than merely a social duty. As they drove in their horse and carriage to the church they proceeded along the gravelled avenue lined with lime trees and passed through the cast-iron gates and the stone piers of the entrance to Cuba Court Demesne. Some of Charlotte’s attitude to religion is expressed in her novel “Shirley”. In the 1850s women attending church services adhered to St Paul’s dogma that it was “a shame for a woman to go with her head uncovered.” In Charlotte’s novel one of the characters rebels against this. She holds, we are told, “a rather contrary doctrine” and lets her hair flow free. I suppose a similar effect would occur nowadays if a Muslim woman was to leave her hair uncovered during an Islamic prayer service. Charlotte was religious, yes, but also driven by an independent streak (her artistic vision) and a sense of freedom. “Shirley” was also critical of the notion that women should always be silent and obedient in the presence of authority. There is nothing wrong with silence and obedience if the authority in question is just and fair, but what happens if it is plainly wrong and inducing suffering?
Charlotte wrote to her long-term friend Margaret Wooler that Cuba House was “Mrs Bell’s residence, where we now are.” She said she was “singularly interested in all about the place” where Arthur grew up. She admired the house, whose rooms were nearly all high-ceilinged and spacious. She wrote that “the drawing room, dining room, etc, are handsomely and commodiously furnished;” adding however that the passageways were bare and desolate. The Nicholls’ bedroom was “a great room on the ground floor” warmed by the glow of a turf-fire in “a wide old chimney.” She said Cuba House “is very large and looks externally like a gentleman’s country seat”. It was a square Georgian residence, built to a U-plan of two stories and attic over a basement with pedimented elevations (pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape), bay and venetian windows, an oculus (which is a circular opening in a wall or dome), and ornate doorcases, topped by a pitched roof with two tall central chimney stacks. To the rear were a gravel courtyard, traditional garden, and outhouses. Nearby, to the east, stood the two-storey Royal Free School. There was attractive parkland surrounding the house.
Cuba Court had been built about 1720 for George and Catherine Fraser and family. George’s father David had emigrated to Ireland in 1697 and became the owner of a large section of land on the banks of the Shannon, including Parke mansion near Banagher.
Charlotte liked Arthur’s relations. “I must say I like my new relations.” She said the men were “thoroughly educated gentlemen” and both daughters, Anna Bell and her sister Harriette, were “strikingly pretty, and their manners are very amiable and pleasing.” Whoever she met in Banagher, whether family, servants or friends, spoke very well of her husband. One of them told her that it was his opinion that Arthur was “one of the best gentlemen in the country.” She wrote, “I have had deep pleasure in hearing his praises on all sides. His Aunt too speaks of him with a mixture of affection and respect.” Aunt Harriette was kind and well-bred. She nursed Charlotte for a couple of days with care and gentleness until she was “greatly better”. Charlotte was in full agreement with the locals’ assessment of her husband’s character. She said he was “a truthful, honourable, unboastful man.” He was her “dear boy” and her heart was “knit to him.”
During their time in Banagher Arthur acted as a tour guide for his wife, imparting his considerable local knowledge and pointing out objects of interest in the locality. Locals were also very pleased to meet with the famous author of Jane Eyre.
One of their excursions was along a country lane from Cuba Court’s entrance to Kerraun Hill, through meadows and woodlands. They were an enviable pair to view as they walked along – attractive, intelligent, very much in love, very happy. Life is often suffering but it is also often bliss, and they were drinking deep from the elixir of bliss. On top of Keeraun Hill was a rath and a meadow. Raths were often left untouched in Ireland because of their association with the Sidhe, the mythological beings who are also referred to as the Tuatha Dé Danann or the Fairy Folk. Charlotte was perhaps told about this association between raths and the fairy folk. If she had been told, she might have liked the thought; because she and her siblings, when they were growing up, had, like most children, loved reading about fairies. As an adult the subject still held a charm and potency for her. The allure of Fairy-land was similar to the allure of paradise, both being places where the qualities of goodness and happiness were present.