That Favourite Resort: The Story of Bray, Co. Wicklow

by Mary Davies

Ever since the 1850s, Bray, Co Wickow, on Ireland’s east coast, has attracted holiday-makers, from all parts of Ireland and across the Irish Sea. During this same period, enjoyment of the seaside gradually changed from prim bathing, sedate walks and genteel attendance at band performances to the altogether freer pleasures of the mid-twentieth century. But although Bray is often thought of as a creation of the Victorian age, this is only one part of its lengthy story. For long centuries, it was a small village centred on a church, castle and mill, uncomfortably sited on the dangerous margin of the area of English influence in Ireland. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it blossomed into a successful resort, catering for invalids and for those seeking fresh air away from grimy Dublin, and forming a base for visitors to the beauty spots of Wicklow. This existing resort role was a factor in the deliberate choice of the town for development when the railway was built in the 1850s. As a planned town – albeit one planned by businessmen rather than by a great landowner – Bray is one of a small distinctive group of Irish towns; as a major Irish holiday resort on the British pattern it has a character all its own. Although the general decline of the traditional seaside holiday after 1970 has changed Bray’s role yet again, the lengthy esplanade, the long straight roads and the grand late-nineteenth-century terraces and houses survive as a reminder of the town’s special history. This study is intended for all those who value this special history, including the many who have fond memories of holidays in Bray.

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