Charlotte Brooke

• Name — Charlotte Brooke • Born — c. 1740 • Birthplace — Rantavan, Ireland • Died — 1793 (aged c. 50) • Place of death — Longford, Ireland • Occupation — writer • Notable Works — 'Reliques of Irish Poetry' (1789)

From an early age she was attracted to books. While the rest of her family was sleeping, Brooke would go down to the study where she would spend hours reading. Charlotte Brooke was educated by her father Henry Brooke, and she immersed herself in reading history and literature at an early age. She was part of the first generation of the Protestant Anglo-Irish settler class who took a strong interest in the Irish language and Gaelic history; her primary interest in Irish language and literature was generated by her hearing it being spoken and recited by the labourers in County Cavan and on the County Kildare estates where her family had moved around 1758. She was led to the study of the Irish language, and in less than two years she found herself in love with it. From reading Irish poetry and admiring its beauties, she proceeded to translate it into English, one of her earliest efforts being a song and monody by Carolan, which appeared in Joseph Cooper Walker's 'Historical Memoirs of Irish Bards.'

Brooke, who was frail herself, took care of her father after her mother died in 1773. Meanwhile, the family had moved back to County Cavan, where they began living in a house they named Longfield which had been built near the Rantavan Estate. A few years after Henry Brooke died in 1783, Charlotte Brooke ran into money troubles, after a model industrial village set up in County Kildare by her cousin Captain Robert Brooke went bankrupt (1787). Walker and other members of the recently created Royal Irish Academy sought to make an income for her, but Charlotte realised she had to rely on her writings and translations.

In 1792, Brooke had taken up a life with friends in Longford, sharing a cottage due to her lack of income. On 29 March 1793, Charlotte Brooke passed of a malignant fever.