Rathfriland literary festival celebrates Brontës' County Down link

BBC News

07-06-2025

The first literary festival to take place in Rathfriland will this weekend celebrate the Brontë family's connection to the area.Rath Literary Festival will feature authors, poets and music in celebration of the area's contributions to the arts, both past and present.The famous sisters' father was a clergyman in nearby Drumballyroney before moving to Yorkshire.Organiser Ada Elliot told BBC News NI he had been "perhaps been overlooked" in the telling of the Brontë family story.
'Rathfriland is a spectacular area'
Patrick Brontë was born Patrick Brunty in County Down in March 1777 - St Patrick's Day - explaining his first name - and changed his surname when he moved to England. Three of his children - Charlotte, Emily and Anne - became authors, with Charlotte writing Jane Eyre and Emily writing Wuthering Heights - both gothic romances set in the north of England, with strong psychological components. Anne Brontë wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which explores themes of social duty and the place of women in the Victorian world."Although the girls are not part of Rathfriland he (Patrick) has a long history here," festival organiser Ada Elliott told BBC Radio Ulster's Your Place and Mine programme."Rathfriland is a spectacular area. We're very proud of it and that's why we want to celebrate it."
Historians through the years have speculated on whether Patrick Brontë's Irish roots might have influenced his daughter's writing, and even whether they might have had Irish accents.County Down celebrates those links. A signposted Brontë interpretive trail runs for 10 miles from an interpretive centre around Rathfriland and its surrounds, allowing visitors to drive through the area and imagine how the windswept Mournes might have influenced the father of girls whose writing was mystical, passionate and wild.But local historian Uel Wright believes more could be done."If you come here you cannot fail to see Brontë signs everywhere," he told BBC News NI. "Roads, homeland, library, nursery, steakhouse - all Brontë."
Despite the wave of enthusiasm that led to those celebrations in the 1990s, the stone cottage where Patrick Brontë was born lies in ruins. Mr Wright hopes public money can be used to restore it and celebrate the link."My theory is that unless there's another generation of interest and enthusiasm to keep the Irish Brontë heritage alive, we're going to lose something very important."
Mr Wright's great-great-uncle William Wright wrote a book on the Brontës in Ireland.Mr Wright believes those stories were based in oral history, in which his ancestor had a great interest, and he will examine them at a talk on Sunday in the schoolhouse where Patrick Brontë taught. "The whole Irish part of the story has gone out of fashion but with the upsurge of interest in oral history let's say - this is what we have in Ireland," he says."Let's celebrate it."Later on Sunday author Martina Devlin, who has written a novel based on Charlotte Brontë's honeymoon in County Offaly, will speak in the original church where he preached before leaving Ireland in 1802.
The Rath Literary Festival started on Friday and runs until Sunday. It has been organised by the Rathfriland Women's Institute, Rathfriland Regeneration and Hilltown Community Association and will feature music and a one-woman show imagining the sisters in the modern day, by Pauline Vallance.Poets will read poems inspired by 19th Century women caught up in the criminal justice and mental health systems, and a walking tour will tell the stories of famous Rathfriland residents down the years. The festival was the brainchild of Margot Groves, who said: "We are delighted to be bringing such a wealth of talent to Rathfriland. There is something for everyone to enjoy no matter which genre they prefer."
And did the Brontë sisters have Irish accents?"It wouldn't be surprising," says Uel Wright."Patrick never made great pretensions with his accent."I don't suppose we'll ever really know but it wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility."