PREM Group are not the only Irish people to show an interest in Belgium and Flanders in particular. The following article documents a long connection between both countries. Everyone is aware of the Irish pubs that take up some of the best real estate locations in historic Flemish cities. But the Irish presence in Flanders goes far beyond a well-pulled pint served by a cheerful barman from Dublin. The Irish have been coming to Flanders since at least the eighth century. The patron saint of Mechelen, St Rombout, was an Irish monk murdered near Mechelen by two men after he advised them to change their evil ways. By the 17th century, a sizeable Irish community had settled in the Irish College in Leuven, where they worked on several texts that helped to shape Irish cultural identity. The Irish also came to this region to fight in the various European wars that scarred the Flemish landscape. Many belonged to the band of Irish soldiers known as the Wild Geese that tramped across 17th century Europe on behalf of Louis XIV of France. One of them, Patrick Sarsfield, died in Landen, near Sint-Truiden, in 1693. As he lay bleeding to death on foreign soil, he lamented: “Would it were for Ireland”. One quarter of a million Irish soldiers came to Flanders in the First World War to fight in the armies of the British Empire, many of them also wishing that they were dying for their homeland. Some came from Catholic families hostile to the British presence in Ireland, while others were from Protestant families loyal to the throne. They fought alongside one another only once – in the Battle of Messines Ridge in June 1917, when a largely Irish army captured the low ridge south of Ypres, paving the way for the Battle of Passchendaele later in the summer. The Irish connection was forgotten by most people after the war. But 10 years ago, in a symbolic gesture of reconciliation, Queen Elisabeth II joined the Irish President Mary McAleese to unveil a tower in memory of the Irish dead of the war. The round stone structure was modelled on traditional Irish towers and built partly with stones salvaged from a British army barracks in Tipperary destroyed during the Irish struggle for independence. The ceremony on the bleak ridge nine kilometres south of Ypres was the first public event attended jointly by a British monarch and an Irish president. It is worth remembering the many Irish people who have passed through this region of Europe, picking up something of its culture and language on the way – like James Joyce, the Irish Writer who spent a few days in Antwerp, took Dutch lessons in Ostend and sprinkled his utterly baffling novel Finnegans Wake with words lovingly culled from the language of the Flemish.
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