Holyhead, on the island of Angelsey, which lies off the northwest coast of Wales,
in the eighteenth century had developed into the major port linking Ireland and the
British Isles. It was the closest landing place to Dublin, with some 100 kilometers
of the Irish Sea intervening. Since, however, Anglesey was an island, passengers still
had to negotiate the treacherous Menai Strait linking it to the mainland. In 1810
Thomas Telford was commissioned at this site to build the first suspension bridge
in the world as part of a modernization of the coach road to Holyhead.
Mary Shelley never traced this itinerary, but Percy did, both going to and returning
from his Dublin adventure via Holyhead in 1812. Mary Wollstonecraft had also taken
this route when she took up her post as governess in the Irish seat of Lord and Lady
Kingsborough in 1786.