By Paddy Walsh
IT would have taken a lot of persuasion to force the classical English author, Jane Austen, to travel beyond the bounds of her beloved England.
And consequently she never did in a lifetime spent putting pen to parchment and revelling in the surrounds of her native Steventon with time spent in Bath and Southampton and other southern English cities and accompanying countryside.
Even the comparatively short journey to Ireland proved beyond her and certainly Donegal could never be counted among the areas she visited in her 42 years in this life.
Not so her two nieces, Cassandra and Louisa Knight, who both ended up not just visiting Donegal but living in it, subsequently dying here and respectively interred in Conwal Parish Church graveyard in Letterkenny and Tully cemetery near Ramelton.
Cassandra, the younger of the two, had been married to the landlord, Lord George Hill, and they had resided at Gortlee House in Letterkenny before her death in childbirth in 1842.
Louisa moved from their native England to look after the four bereaved children and ended up marrying Hill.
It’s a story that could have occupied the pages of one of their aunt’s novels had she not passed away some years beforehand.
But it is a story that has attracted international attention from literary lovers including members of the Jane Austen Societies located in all corners of the globe.
The latest member to follow the trail in Donegal was Philadelphia resident, Rebekah Ray, who arrived here with her husband, Terry, to spend a few days in the company of Donnan Harvey and Shane Toolan from the Cathedral Quarter committee and visit the various locations associated with the Knight sisters.
Rebekah Ray and husband Terry at the grave at Conwal Parish Church where the remains of Cassandra Knight and Lord George Hill are interred.
First stop on a Sunday morning followed a short walk up the Church Lane to view the graves of Cassandra Knight and Lord Hill in Conwal Parish Church graveyard.
A retired public librarian, Rebekah, who is the Regional Coordinator of the Jane Austen Society of North America, read her first Jane Austen novel, ‘Emma’, at the age of 21, the same age as it happened as the lead character.
“I suppose I was a very serious person at that time and I considered Emma to be a very silly person and very frivolous. Wealth does that to you. She was an entitled young woman.”
At the age of 25, Rebekah read one of Jane Austen’s most renowned publications, ‘Pride and Prejudice’. “And I really enjoyed that.”
Twenty years after initially delving into ‘Emma’, Rebekah re-read the book and while she still found the character to be frivolous, she savoured it much more. “I saw her differently then.”
Soon began a compassion for all of Austen’s work that finally culminated in her joining the Jane Austen Society.
“I joined it in 2014 after reading of its existence on Facebook and haven’t looked back since.”
While not a member of the Society, husband Terry has read all the Jane Austen books and watched the films.
Donnan Harvey, meanwhile, had been on a visit to Letterkenny’s sister town, Elizabethtown and got to learn of the Jane Austen Society. “He had e-mailed me and said he would like to meet other Jane people. And he and a few others had dinner at my house in Philadelphia.”
The talk had touched on the Cathedral Quarter Festival in Letterkenny which had first highlighted the Jane Austen connections with the locality.
“I had planned to attend the festival later this year but my daughter tells me I’m going to be a grandmother in September so that rules that visit out. However, my good friend, Mary Ellen, who is also a member of the Jane Austen Society, is hoping to travel for it and I’m aiming for a visit next year.”
Meanwhile, her first visit to Donegal brought her and her spouse – with the help of Messrs Harvey and Toolan – to Gaoth Dobhair where Lord George Hill built a hotel and developed a port at Bunbeg.
“We also saw the little church which he may have gone to when resident there,” Rebekah relates. “It must have been a very wild place at the time – very isolated.”
The party then journeyed to Ramelton and specifically Ballyare House where, thanks to the permission of current occupant, Roy Greenslade, they were allowed to walk around. “The house is beautiful – somebody is certainly taking loving care of it.”
Also on the agenda was a visit to Tully graveyard where Louisa Knight is laid to rest side by side with her sister, Marianne.
“It was a great experience to see all these places and the family connections with Jane Austen.”
Rebekah also got to meet with local Jane Austen enthusiast, Clare McDonagh; visited the Donegal County Museum; and the Central Library in Letterkenny.
And Donnan invited her and Terry into the Cathedral Quarter headquarters – his own home on the Church Lane.
As anyone who has been there will know, the upstairs walls are decorated with photographs, posters, newspaper cuttings and other material – a treasure trove of local history.
“You’re running out of wall,” she tells Donnan.
But no doubt he’ll find a space for a couple of images of the latest visitors to take a serious interest in the Cathedral Quarter and its associations with the Jane Austen story.