Life & Style

Jane Austen's Irish connections - an interview with an expert

WHEN you hear the words Jane Austen, chances are you wouldn't think of Cork, the Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan or Irish music.

What all these things have in common is that they are in connection to Jane Austen, a woman renowned for her beautiful writing and exciting plots, but less known for her connections with the Emerald Isle...

Casual Jane Austen readers, such as myself, may not have recognised the signs and signals of Jane Austen's relationship with Ireland.

However, London-based Austen expert Julia Forsythe, was able to connect the links after years of research and reading.

I was lucky enough to have an interview with the author, and her knowledge on the subject is vast and her passion for the free spirit Jane Austen, is clear.

Julia told me about her journey with Jane, and how it led her to writing the book Jane Austen and the Irish Connection in time for the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death - July 18, 1817.

A Jane Austen festival (Picture: Getty Images)

Where did your interest in Jane Austen come from?

I saw the series with Collin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. At the time I had cancer, and so did my two sisters in Ireland, one in Cork and one in Kerry, and we used to chat about it.

They came over to me and we started to go to the places where Jane Austen had mentioned in her novels and where she was in her life.

I started reading on Jane Austen and all of her six novels and then realised Ireland was mentioned quite a few times in Emma, Persuasion - her last novel - where one of the admiral’s wives had been to Cork, and of course Jane herself had mentioned Cork in her letters.

I was from Cork, and when I was reading the last book, which has come to kind of be my favourite, I thought 'oh my God, I read this book when I was a teenager in Cork'. I had found it on the street in a brown paper bag.

I had forgotten the name, but I realised reading it that I had read the book before and it was Jane Austen, I had read it 40 to 50 years ago in Cork.

Then I began reading about her life.

Can you tell me some things that people might not know about Jane Austen’s Irish connections?

Well her two brothers were in the Navy, around seas of Ireland during the late 1700s up to when they died.

But you see at that time there was the 1798 rebellion, correspondence was secret and her brothers were on the ships there.

Of course, I love the sea, I’ve always gone by sea to Ireland, the sea is fascinating and the one thing about Jane is that she loved authentic people and she was so authentic herself, and anything that she would write about would be genuine and I would believe that she had an affinity especially for Cork.

But then there were other things that Jane loved, Irish music, song and dance, of which was and will always be, a great part of the Irish culture, and of course the Irish playwrights.

I can name half a dozen which are in the book, but the one, did you ever hear of Richard Brinsley Sheridan?

He wrote The Rivals, The School for Scandal and The Critic, fantastic, three fantastic plays of the late 18th century.

The thing I discovered after looking at the three plays for months, is that Pride and Prejudice is based on The Rivals, and I have a chapter on that in my book.

There is a similarity to Darcy Fitzwilliam in Pride and Prejudice and the fourth Earl Fitzwilliam.

It was the first book I wrote, and I wasn’t teaching for a few years and I just wrote it because I loved Jane's books.

I loved her way of life, which was lovely when you look at it, so I wrote, and my two sisters and brother egged me on.

Actually, my brother’s Parish Priest was a bishop near Chawton and we used to go down to visit him, to see the house where Jane lived in the last eight years of her life.

Then me and my husband went to Lyme Regis - he wasn’t that interested in Jane Austen at all but he loved the sea.

We went to Bath where Jane mentioned the assembly rooms in Persuasion and in North Hanger Abbey.

When we came back he died suddenly, he was a great and lovely man, so I thought I have to finish the book now.

When was it that you came to London?

I came to London in the early 1960s, I’m not a young woman but I’m alright.

I had cancer twice and it came back the third time but it was squashed, so in-between all this drama other members of my family had cancer.

But sure that’s just what it was, it was cancer, and we lived on with it you know.

People read Jane Austen, but wow, she lived life to the full.

She lived in the country, Hampshire, she lived a lovely life and had a great romance but not for long.

Thomas Lefroy, he was Irish and there’s a chapter about him, but if she hadn’t split with Lefroy, (he left her as he was expected to marry), she would have never written the wonderful novels; and they’re there for all time, they’re about romance, courtship, family life, and that’s what we need today.

I know we live in a more disturbed time today, but what she wrote can never be passed.

She lived life to the full, she loved dancing, loved playing music and loved drama.

Do you think it’s good Jane Austen is still read in schools today?

I certainly do, 100 per cent; her writing is lovely. Her plots are good and they’re romantic, why not.

I happened to turn on Love Island last night, and I thought, that’s not good enough to give to youngsters.

Real love, you can’t surpass it.

Would you be able to tell me more about your favourite Jane Austen book?

Someone else asked me that and I know between two; Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, because Persuasion is the book I found in the bag.

I started to read Jane Austen when I was older, and in Persuasion she is looking back at her life and you can see the nostalgia and the settle of scores.

But for youth and joy, you cannot beat Pride and Prejudice - mind you they’re all great.

Unfortunately Mansfield Park has a very sad ending, and they are all based on Sheridan’s.

Pride and Prejudice is based on The Rival, Jane was around 20 when she started it and she had seen his play aged eight when her brothers came home from Oxford and put on The Rival.

She saw that and I think it took hold of her, it was like she was put under a spell of Sheridan all her life.

A few weeks after she died, at her brother’s parish they put on the staging of The Rival, and nobody said why or what, but to me I could see that they knew that it was one of her favourite plays, and that was when it came clear to me.

She loved many Irish playwrights.