The Regency Reading Room

The real places behind the Kinsale Chronicles

Every book in the series is set somewhere you can still visit. Here are the places, what they were like two hundred years ago, and which books will take you there.

See them all on the map

Kinsale, County Cork

A harbour town on the south coast, where the River Bandon meets the sea. In 1601 it was the scene of the Battle of Kinsale, one of the turning points of Irish history, and afterwards the harbour was guarded by great star-shaped forts, among them Charles Fort, built in the late 1600s and still standing above the water. The old parish church of St Multose dates from the Normans and is still in use. In the town stands Desmond Castle, a tower house of around 1500, later used to hold prisoners of war and still known as the "French Prison".

In the books: Rosaleen's white house on the hill above the harbour, the weddings at St Multose, and the arrival of the Cork mail coach in The Kinsale Correspondent. Kinsale is home again in The Physician's Irish Bride and The Lisbon Correspondence.

The Burren, County Clare

Its name comes from the Irish boireann, a rocky place. It is a great grey landscape of limestone pavement, cracked into slabs, where Arctic-alpine and Mediterranean flowers grow side by side, among them the blue spring gentian and many orchids. Seasonal lakes called turloughs appear in winter and vanish in summer. People have lived here for thousands of years: the Poulnabrone portal tomb is around 5,000 to 6,000 years old, and the ruined Cistercian abbey of Corcomroe dates from the late 1100s.

In the books: the botanist's field site in Books 1 and 2, the turlough of the free prequel The Turlough Stone, and Ballyvaughan on Galway Bay, home of Donaghmore Hall (which is invented) in The Earl's Wild Irish Shore and The Clare Survey.

The Aran Islands, County Galway

Three limestone islands across the mouth of Galway Bay: Inis Mór, Inis Meáin and Inis Oírr. Their fields are tiny, walled with stone, and were made fertile over generations with sand and seaweed. On the cliff edge of Inis Mór stands Dún Aonghasa, a prehistoric stone fort above a sheer drop to the Atlantic. Irish is still the everyday language of the islands.

In the books: The Crossing to Inishmore and The Aran Survey, which visits all three islands.

Galway town and Galway Bay

A medieval trading town at the mouth of the River Corrib, long busy with ships from France and Spain. The Spanish Arch, built in 1584 as part of the town walls, still stands by the river, and across the water lies the Claddagh, the old fishing village famous for its ring.

In the books: the hedge school and the harbour of The Solicitor's Return and The Tidal Survey.

Connemara and Clifden

Bogs, lakes and mountains running down to a ragged Atlantic coast in the far west of County Galway. Clifden, its main town, was founded in 1812 by the landowner John D'Arcy, so in the 1820s, when the books are set there, it was a brand-new town.

In the books: The Connemara Survey and the coastal dispensary of The Surgeon's Reluctant Shore.

Kilcredaun Point and the Shannon

A headland on the north shore of the Shannon estuary, near the fishing village of Carrigaholt in west Clare, looking out to the Atlantic and across to Kerry. A battery was built on the point in 1814 to guard the river during the Napoleonic Wars, and the Kilcredaun lighthouse first shone on 1 September 1824. It guided ships for 187 years before it was switched off in 2011.

In the books: The Widow of Kilcredaun, about a widow who has read the tide on the point for twenty years.

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The towns and landscapes are real; some houses and characters, such as Donaghmore Hall, are invented. The Regency Reading Room is written by Regency romance author Victoria Ashbourne, and the book suggestions on these pages are her own novels.