Marina Saegerman writes:
The 2015 annual
holiday was spent as usual in our beloved holiday spot: Ireland.
Of course, being an
Ireland fanatic and a Brontë fan, it is no wonder that especially the “ Irish
connection” of the Brontë story is an attraction to me.
After having visited
Banagher in 2013 (where Arthur Bell Nicholls grew up and spent the last years
of his life) and the Northern Irish homeland in 2014 (Rev. Patrick Brontë’s
roots), we were once more on the Brontë trail, this time in the Connemara.
Ever since I read the
books on the life of Arthur Bell Nicholls two years ago, I have become
fascinated by this man who played such a significant role in Charlotte Brontë’s
life. Over the years, without even realizing it, my husband and I visited the
places in Ireland related to the Brontës, in particular the places Charlotte
and Arthur visited on their honeymoon.
When reading the story
about Arthur Bell Nicholls’ life I discovered where he came from and where he
spent his life after returning to Ireland. I came across a few other places
that needed further investigation. One of them was Kill House near Clifden in
the Connemara. This is the house where Arthur’s cousin, Harriette Bell lived with
her husband and six of their seven children. Harriette was the cousin Arthur
proposed to in 1851 and who declined his proposal.
My husband and I
became intrigued with this house. We had been looking at the internet and found
a vague location near the Sky road (Clifden). We knew the area quite well and
have been driving around on the Sky road peninsula many times, but we could not
figure out where the house would be situated.
This year, armed with
a google map (very vague) and an old picture of the house, we went back to the
Sky Road peninsula to have a better look. We were driving very slowly so as to
have a good look at all the “big” houses we passed . We took all possible
byways and turned corners on very narrow roads. Driving a van on those narrow Irish
roads is not an easy thing to do, believe me! Finally, I thought I
saw a house in the far distance that looked like a house similar to the one in
the picture. We took the byway, which led us to a peninsula off the Sky road peninsula,
and arrived in a “village” (which we later found out to be Cill). We recognized
the place, we had been there many years ago to try and find a B&B with
angling facilities, where some Belgian anglers had been staying. The house that
I had seen in the distance was near that B&B, up the hill. Great was my joy
when we arrived and it matched exactly the picture that I had in my hand. The
sign next to the gate confirmed this. We had found “Kille House”! I was over
the moon.
The house is now in
private hands and cannot be visited. But just standing there at the gate and
looking at the house was enough for me! Another personal mission accomplished! Two weeks later we
were back in Northern Ireland, Co. Down, to meet up with Margaret Livingston
and Finny O’Sullivan from the Northern Irish Branch of the Brontë Society. Last
year Margaret and Finny took us on the homeland trail to trace Rev. Patrick
Brontë”s roots. Finny mentioned some other places that we might visit this year,
off the beaten track again, and certainly not on the homeland tour. So, off we
went again, on a Brontë tour with a difference!
The first stop was
Tully farm in Killead (Co. Antrim), the house where Arthur Bell Nicholls was
born. It is a two-storey farmhouse looking out across the fields to Lough Neagh
and the Sperrin mountains. The house has changed since the days that Arthur
lived here with his parents, William and Margaret Nicholls (née Bell), and his
brothers and sisters. Arthur lived here up to the age of 7 when he and his
brother Alan moved to Cuba House in Banagher to live with their uncle Dr. Alan
Bell and his family. Dr. Alan Bell raised the two boys as his own, offered them
a good education and ensured a good start in life for them, which they would
not have had if they had stayed in Killead.
The next stop on our tour was Killead Church and graveyard
on Drennans Road, where we visited the grave of Arthur Bell Nicholls’ parents
and some of his siblings. It is said that Arthur and his brother never went
back to their birthplace and never saw their parents again, although the
families did keep in touch. Margaret Nicholls née Bell was born in the nearby
village of Glenavy, and that was where we were heading to next: Glenavy Church
and graveyard. The Bell graves are not easy to find, you really must know where
to look, but luckily for us, Finny did know. The graves are very overgrown and
it is very difficult to decipher the names , but we could discover a few names
of the Bell family on the gravestones.
We had one more stop
to do on this special tour: the protestant old Church of Magherally and its graveyard,
a few miles out of Banbridge. It was here that Rev. Patrick Brontë’s parents
Hugh Brunty and Alice McClory were secretly married in 1776. The church is a
ruin nowadays, but enough is left of it to see how it would have looked like.
An additional bonus at the graveyard (not Brontë related) was the fact that the
famous Irish poet Helen Waddell (I came across her name and poems when doing
research for my next calligraphy project on
Irish poetry) was buried in this old graveyard. I knew she was from the
area but did not know she was buried in this particular graveyard.
I really enjoyed this
special tour and learned a lot about the relatives of Arthur Bell Nicholls,
facts I had read about in the biographies (see note below), but came alive when
visiting the actual area where the family had lived. Finny proved to be a real fountain
of knowledge during this tour.
Last year I thought
we had seen all the Brontë links in Ireland. I wonder, what next year will bring!
19 September 2015
For further reading, the following
books can be recommended:
“My dear boy - the life of Arthur Bell Nicholls
“(Margaret and Robert Cochrane)
“Mr Charlotte Brontë – the life of Arthur Bell
Nicholls” (Alan H. Adamson)
