Riviera Cuisine

A shop in Vieux Nice offering over 20 varieties of salt and pepper!

Provence is different, the first Province of Rome, to this day it is a cross fertilisation of French and Italian. Then if you take that rarefied sub region the Riviera, a natural sun bowl protected from the Northern climate by the Alpes-Maritimes it bears the footprints and influences of the many who have passed this way including Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks and more recently the exotic spices of the place called in Arabic, The Maghreb, “The Edge”, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Add to this pot-pourri the World and its live in companion who have followed Les Anglais here from 1860 onwards then you have an interesting mix. Then did I mention that until 1860 most of the Riviera was part of the Savoy Kingdom of Piedmont and as it supports variations on the Occitan and Ligurian dialects then you can see we are talking about a complex mix!



While many French regions will claim their cuisine is the finest in France, there's something about Provence and the Cote d'Azur that gives it an edge. Almost certainly the climate plays a part, for who can resist sitting outside a Provencal restaurant and eating a selection of the region's famed dishes. Shopping in the local markets is an experience too. One of the most famous, the Cours Saleya market in Nice, for example, is an experience that will delight any lover of fine food. But as elsewhere in France the foundation of the cuisine is good artisan ingredients au terroir, good bread and the other key components of the Mediterranean Diet, good wine, good oil and the fruits from the citrus and from the sea.


Cours Saleya market


Calamari Provencale

Restaurants in Nice range from cheap and cheerful to Michelin-starred. If your hotel or apartment is in the centre of Nice or Old Town, you will have a wide choice of where to eat in Nice all within walking distance, not including the hundreds of fast-food cafes and bars and numerous boulangeries. Ordering a carafe d'eau gets you free tap water - they prefer (obviously) to sell you a bottle of water- usually the sparkling Badoit - we've paid up to 3,50 Euros for half a bottle. If you want the free water, ask very clearly for the carafe, if you just ask for water, you'll be given a choice of fizzy 'gaz' or still 'sans gaz' and then you will feel too intimidated to then ask for the free carafe, so get the words out first!




Mr Piggy is stuffed!

Some restaurants will offer an aperitif first, so unless you want pre-meal drinks, often a 'kir' (white wine and cassis) be ready to say no, just the menu please. Alternatively, order your wine to come straight away, but if the service is slow, you may end up ordering a second bottle.


Assiete de Fromages

A cheap way to order glugging wine is to order a pitchet - this is a jug with the local house wine which can often be good and drinkable. A pichet is a litre, half a pitchet is half a litre, etc. Beer for some reason can be extremely expensive in Nice, up to 8 Euros a large glass. Stick to the house wine and a carafe of water to get the best value from restaurants. Buy beer from the local supermarket and enjoy it at your hotel or apartment before you head off to a restaurant. When you buy beer in a restaurant, there are different ways to order it, often you ask for a 'pression' which is draught beer, either a 'demi-pression'- half a litre or a 'formidable' - a litre, the name says it all. Or, order bottled beer by brand.


Gigot d'agneau

What you might consider to be the menu i.e. the list of food is called 'La Carte' and not Le Menu. Le Menu refers to a set-price meal of two or three, sometimes 4 courses. This is also known as the 'formule'. A daily special, the 'plat du jour' or dish of the day may be chalked up somewhere. The 'formule' or 'menu' with or without the 'plat du jour' will be displayed with the ordinary Carte, often on a separate piece of paper or chalked up somewhere. Ask, if you don't see it as it often gives the best value, certainly much cheaper than ordering a la carte. The plat du jour will be freshly made and the best item to order; this is often as good a way as any when choosing a restaurant; when you're strolling past a group of restaurants, just go for whatever plat du jour takes your fancy.


Salade de saumon

While aioli, Salade Nicoise, bouillabaisse and stuffed peppers are important in the local cuisine, there's much else to explore. Tripe is a local delicacy while an alternative to a fish soup is Soupe au Pistou. It's very much like a minestrone with an added sauce featuring basil, oil, cheese and garlic, a little like the more famous 'pesto' from along the coast in Liguria, Italy. Indeed, Italian favourites are everywhere in Nice. Not only is the city a short train journey away from the border, but Nice was for a long time part of Italy - albeit Piedmont as the Italian state was only a twinkle in Garibaldi's eye when the locals voted to be part of France in 1860.


Soupe de Poisson with rouille - Provençal style Fish Soup with saffron, chile mayonnaise.


Moules et Frites

Pizza and pasta are everywhere. You'll find some lovely small shops making and selling pasta in hundreds of varieties in the Old Town and elsewhere in the city. If you are self-catering, it's an ideal way to produce a fine meal, perhaps followed by a fresh fish from the many stalls surrounding the Cours Saleya. The Cours Saleya is the most famous market of Nice. The market is open every day except on Mondays when Cours Saleya has a large flea market.




Boulangerie



Though the main aisle is the most dazzling thanks to its array of colours, what really interests us is the collection of small producers’ stalls near the Rue de la Préfecture. The fruit and vegetables are not as uniformly shaped and the variety not as great, but every ingredient we will find here is firmly rooted in the region and much of it is organic. Depending on the season you might see: untreated oranges, including bitter oranges for jam real wild asparagus strawberries from Carpentras tomatoes ripened on the vine figs bursting with juice the mix of salad leaves known as mesclun (no Niçois meal would be complete without it and much more.




The truffle Menu at Le Balecon, beside the Opera House

The promenade where the market is located dates back to the sixteenth century when the town was ruled by the House of Savoy and, as Vieux Nice was largely constructed during this period, the Italian influence can be seen everywhere. The market although appears to be touristy is actually a very good value. Do try Socca is a chickpea flour pancake which is a Nicoise fast food speciality. Portions are about 2-3 Euros, sprinkle with salt and pepper and eat with your fingers.



It would be disingenuous to say that the city's old quarter, known as Vieux Nice, is lost in time, but it does remain quiet and mysterious, a place apart. In the southern part of the area you get a sense of the nearby sea, but can only glimpse it through a couple of arches in the wall. A massive church looms at the end of a street almost too narrow for two people to walk abreast. And yet, on that same street, three not-yet-teenagers zoom back and forth on skateboards, bouncing off the walls.



The five things you must try in Nice are;

• 1. Socca is a hot and crispy chickpea pancake, blackened around the edges, and custard like inside. It is the quintessential street food of Nice, baked over hot coals on enormous steel platters.

• 2. Niçoise Salad - The classic Niçoise salad includes anchovies, Dijon vinaigrette, shallots, red peppers, and other fresh vegetables. Potatoes were a later addition, as was fresh tuna.

• 3. Pissaladière - This is a tart, or pizza, topped with tasty things: Anchovies, onions, and olives. It is salty, tart, and intense. It is also a great example of how Italian and French food mingles in this seaside town.

• 4. Farcis - These are a classic specialty of Nice — vegetables like tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini, hollowed out and stuffed with ground meat, garlic, and bread crumbs. They are baked and served hot or cold.

• 5. Rosé Wine - Rosé wine is the classic accompaniment to every summer meal in Nice. The local rosé is cheap, dry, and perfectly attuned to the flavours of the food.

So to restaurants. There is a wider and more cosmopolitan choice than you may think as a consequence of France’s colonial history. There are many Indian restaurants and in Britain we forget how extensive “French India” was. It included Pondichéry (now Puducherry), Karikal and Yanaon (now Yañam) on the Coromandel Coast, Mahé on the Malabar Coast, and Chandannagar in Bengal. Indeed many of the French Indian possessions did not become part of modern India until 1963. So the cuisine is more authentic and challenging than found in Britain with its Bengali 3 pot curries and Chicken Tikka Masala brought to the UK by ship’s cooks from Cox’s Bazaar. Mostly here they are Tamils from Southern India with the wild pickles, heady spicing, use of fruit and coconut and always fish for which Southern India is famous.





The French presence in Indo-China is reflected in the many Vietnamese, Cambodian and Chinese restaurants bringing together the magical flavours of South East Asia. The diversity and cuisines of The Maghreb are well represented with the area behind Notre Dame on Avenue Jean Médecin providing a meeting place for North Africa on a Sunday morning with Moroccan and Tunisian supermarkets and Halal butchers doing a lively trade alongside the bakeries and coffee shops with their sentinels of hubble bubble Shisha pipes on the pavements outside. The other French Colonial interest of Lebanon is also represented even if the excellent one we went to at 2, Rue de Suisse at the side of Notre Dame did resplend in the unlikely Lebanese name of “Le Socrate!”




Beef or Horse?

There are haute cuisine restaurants a plenty along the Promenade des Anglais and a wide selection of other eateries around the Torinese style Place Masséna, the main square of the city, in the Old Town, by the Port and around the Cours Saleya market. However our personal favourites were on the Rue Biscarra which runs from Avenue Jean Médecin to Rue Lamartine about halfway between the seafront and the railway. Here there is a cluster of about 6 lively Bistro style establishments each offering different takes on the local cuisine. Our favourite was L’Authentic on the corner of Rue Lamartine but they all seemed good with predominately locals and French visitors enjoying the cuisine and atmosphere.


L’Authentic


Salade Provencale

The food, service and pricing (if you ordered the formule) at L’Authentic were exceptional and it lived up to its name. Order a Salade Provencale here and you ended up with a buffet on a plate. There were 4 types of Farcis, Jambon, a Pissaladière, a small goat’s cheese tart not to mention well dressed salad leaves Jerusalem Artichoke and tomato and mozzarella.


Salade de Fruits



Order a Salade de Fruits for desert and you will be astonished to be served a dinner plate with a Brick ( a light North African pastry) nest in the centre filled with wonderful homemade vanilla ice cream topped with Chantilly cream surrounded with tropical fruit dusted trickled with a coulis, dusted with icing sugar and sprinkled with chopped nuts. If anybody is on a fruit diet this would have passed muster as a sharing plate for two! Here and in the other establishments along Rue Biscarra the combination of artisan ingredients handled with respect and confidence and then served with panache to a discerning French clientele makes for a true French dining experience. Highly recommended, as they say themselves on their site but it also sums up the cuisine of this enticing area;

“Générosité, Convivialité, Simplicité et Originalité”

L’Authentic

18 bis, rue Biscarra, 06 000 NICE

www.lauthentic.com

Bon Appétit!

Eileen Gray Screen sells for €1.3m

PARAVENT 'BRIQUES', c. 1923-1925

I have long championed the Irish Designer Eileen Gray who greatly influenced 20th Century Design and Architecture at the creative nexus of the Modern Movement. Her iconic seaside villa E-1027 at Roquebrune Cap Martin obsessed the architect Le Corbusier who died of a heart attack swimming in the sea within sight of it. The furniture and fittings she designed for E-1027, an apartment on the Rue Lota in Paris and her own apartment on Rue Bonaparte are classics of 20th Century Design. Her contribution was largely unsung before her death in 1976 but now art connoisseurs are paying huge sums for original examples of her work. Last year a small armchair designed by her achieved the highest prices ever for a piece of 20th Century furniture and yesterday at Christie’s in Paris other pieces achieved truly remarkable prices.


Eileen Gray 1879 - 1976

Eileen Gray is regarded as one of the most important furniture designers and architects of the early 20th century and the most influential woman in those fields. Her work inspired both modernism and Art Deco. Her design style was as distinctive as her way of working, and Gray developed an opulent, luxuriant take on the geometric forms and industrially produced materials used by the International Style designers, such as Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand and Mies Van Der Rohe, who shared many of her ideals. Her voluptuous leather and tubular steel Bibendum Chair, and clinically chic E-1027 glass and tubular steel table are now as familiar as icons of the International Style as Le Corbusier and Perriands classic Grand Confort club chairs, yet for most of her career she was relegated to obscurity by the same proud singularity that makes her work so prized today. From her early lacquer work to design classics like the Bibendum chair and her architectural masterpiece, E-1027, Eileen Gray's work was as individual as it was exciting.


FAUTEUIL 'TRANSAT', c. 1926-1930

Eileen Gray was an extraordinary character, single-minded and individualistic, who managed to capture and express in her own way the prevailing spirit of the age in design through the first decades of the 20th century. She was celebrated in February 2009 during the auction of the Yves Saint Laurent-Pierre Bergé collections at the Grand Palais when her remarkable ‘Serpents’ chair, circa 1917-1919, originally from the collections of fashionable milliner Suzanne Talbot and the quintessence of her work in lacquer, achieved the record sum of €21 million.


Fauteuil aux Serpents


Table d'appoint pour E-1027

Eileen Gray arrived in Paris in 1902, studying at the Académie Colorassi and the Académie Julian before exploring the medium of lacquer after her curiosity was sparked by a visit to a small atelier in Soho. She met Japanese artist Seizo Sugarawa with whom she would work for a number of years. An enigmatic personality, as private as she was determined, she chose in the early 1920s to move away from the highly refined lacquer work of her early days, in order to focus on more functionalist designs in metal, glass and painted wood, inspired at first by the Modernist ideas of the Dutch De Stjil movement.


Eileen Gray in her rue de Bonaparte apartment with the Brick Screen in 1970

Her creativity and vision found expression in new forms, such as the ‘Brick’ screen – developed from the panels she used in the hallway of the apartment of Suzanne Talbot on Rue de Lota, circa 1922. The black-lacquered screen presented here was part of her personal furnishing and featured in her apartment on Rue Bonaparte. Other examples of her work include the floor light, the black and yellow base of which resembles a piece of Constructivist architecture, again made for her own use, or the ‘Transat’ armchair, circa 1925, in black lacquer with seat made from coated canvas, formerly the property of her friend and collaborator architect Jean Badovici, founder of the avant-garde magazine L’Architecture Vivante, 1923.


‘Aéroplane’ ceiling light

Her unique inspiration can be seen in her ‘Aéroplane’ ceiling light, circa 1925-28, constructed like an abstract sculpture from metal elements and two sheets of glass, one white, one blue. This specific example had belonged to Miss Gray. Another was commissioned by the eminent connoisseur and patron of Modernism, the Maharaja of Indore.

The Gourdon Collection of Art Nouveau, Art Deco and modernist design is being sold by Christie’s International at the Palais de Tokyo on March 29-31, 2011. The 500 works are owned by French collector Laurent Negro, who has been buying 20th-century design since the 1990s. Her 1920s black lacquer “Brick” screen sold at auction last night. The black lacquered screen panel, part of the late Co Wexford designer's personal furniture at her Paris apartment, was one of the first pieces to go under the hammer last night and sold for €1.3m at Christie's in Paris. The 1923-1925 'Brick' screen was among 15 Gray pieces that are expected to fetch up to €6m by the end of the auction tomorrow. An Bibendum Armchair - with a tubular chrome base and puffy seats - that is seen as a classic example of her radical foray into modernism - sold for €709,000, while a circa 1926-1929 standing table fetched €241,000.



Her works were included in the prestigious Gourdon Collection which went under the hammer at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris yesterday. The collection is regarded as one of the most important private collections of early 20th Century modern art. Eileen Gray was born in Brownswood, near Enniscorthy, Co Wexford in 1879, and died in Paris aged 99. The furniture from her Paris apartment now forms the centrepiece of the Eileen Gray exhibition at the National Museum, Collins Barracks in Dublin. It is good that this most famous Irish designer’s great talent is recognised in her own country and in the extraordinary prices her works achieve in the salerooms.


Maison en bord de mer E.1027 - Roquebrune Cap Martin

For more on E-1027, the iconic Moderne house designed by Eileen Gray at Roquebrune Cap Martin see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/e-1027-roquebrune-cap-martin.html

For the story of Eileen Gray’s armchair, Fauteuil aux Serpents, which achieved the highest price ever for a piece of 20th Century furniture see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/02/eileen-grays-armchair.html



FAUTEUIL 'BIBENDUM', c. 1926-1929

Je ne regrette rien?

Thierry Henry

After France won their World Cup qualifier against Ireland last Wednesday at the Stade de Fraud, Paris, with Thierry Henry’s handball the cry went up around France’s former Republican ally “Liberté, égalité, fraternité et replay!”

But now it's all over for Ireland in World Cup 2010. FIFA has refused a replay against France so the country will now have to return to discussing its bankrupt economy and incompetent dishonest politicians. Pity, they could have done with the distraction.

Depression about being cheated out of a place in World Cup 2010 by the French Handball team means I'm back on the drink! Still, we must now look for the positives, think of all the Irish fans who now won't get murdered in South Africa!

The BBC reports that for a nation not particularly known for its moral qualms - it once hailed a head-butting footballer as a hero - the French feel surprisingly chastened about their questionable qualification for next year's World Cup. Reactions to Thierry Henry's handball, which led to the goal that sent the national team to the South African finals at the expense of the hapless Irish, have ranged from embarrassment to outrage.

The incident in Wednesday's game has been commented on in newspapers, on websites, and in cafes up and down France. It has even become of affair of state, with politicians weighing in. President Nicolas Sarkozy felt obliged to tell Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen that he felt sorry for his people. In an online poll for Le Monde, almost two-thirds of respondents agreed that the handball "discredits France's qualification".

Le Parisien newspaper summarised the national mood: "The handball of Henry has brought a decisive contribution to the theme 'being French is being ashamed of one's national team'." So perhaps for Les Bleus, the French cockerel is not crowing too loudly?

Enfin, répétez après moi;

“Non! Rien de rien...
Non! Je ne regrette rien...
Car ma vie, car mes joies
Aujourd'hui, a commence avec toi!”

The Hand of the French

Le French Hand job! Merde!

Feelings are running high in Ireland after the country failed to qualify for World Cup 2010 in South Africa. The only topic of discussion in Ireland today is the French Hand job! Merde!! Ireland suffered the cruelest of World Cup exits as France went through with a goal with a goal which should have been disallowed for handball. Thierry Henry clearly handled before playing the ball for William Gallas to score the equaliser which saw France win the play-off 2-1 on aggregate at Stade de France, Paris. In fact Henry handled the ball twice, which would have been a foul in Volleyball let alone Soccer!



Thierry Henry admitted that he had intentionally handled the ball to set up William Gallas’s decisive goal against Ireland in Wednesday night's World Cup play-off in Paris. With cries of “cheat” ringing in his ears from furious Irish fans, the Barcelona and former Arsenal forward emerged from the dressing room to say: “I will be honest, it was a handball. But I’m not the ref. I played it, the ref allowed it. That’s a question you should ask him.”

Today in Ireland the mood is grim with calls to boycott French Fries, French Batons and even calls to outlaw French Kissing! It is safe to assume that Thierry Henry is not going on holiday in Ireland any time soon. My personal favourite is the reworking of the 1916 Declaration of Independence which a wag has put on the Facebook protest site “Hands up who think Ireland deserve the place in the 2010 World Cup.”


William Gallas bundles in France's extra-time winner in the World Cup play-off against the Republic of Ireland at the Stade de France in Paris last night

“IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for A REPLAY.

Having organised and trained her boys in green, she has stood tall in the face of disappointment and injustice , through the support of the Irish nation home and abroad, through her hope and hard work, carried forth by the supporters, young and old, having patiently perfected her discipline, even learnt to take penalties, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she last night seized that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she struck in full confidence of victory. Two men sought to bring down a nation: one by means of trickery and deceit; the other, to pander blindly in the face of world powers.


The Hand of the French

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to compete in the 2010 World Cup, and to continue with the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be victorious and undefeatable. The long usurpation of that right, played out last night by the hands of Thierry Henry and the blind ref, can never be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people, we demand the right to justice and a replay at the very least.


Le Grenouille - The legs of the French

In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom, justice and victory; six times during the last three hundred years they have asserted it to arms, last night we exerted it peacefully and proudly on a pitch in Paris. Now, we must face the second hand of God, the powers of FIFA and their colonial friends. Standing on our fundamental right to justice, and again asserting it peacefully in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic the deserved and righteous qualifier for South Africa, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our fellow countrymen and women to the cause of her victory, of the realisation of her long held dream, and of her exaltation among the nations of World Cup 2010.”


The French players celebrate William Gallas' extra-time goal

The French Goal Should Not Stand... Ireland Deserve to be in the 2010 World Cup

Contact FIFA via this link...

http://www.fifa.com/contact/form.html

And join the protest group on Facebook;

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hands-up-who-think-Ireland-deserve-the-place-in-the-2010-World-Cup/181240290833#/pages/Hands-up-who-think-Ireland-deserve-the-place-in-the-2010-World-Cup/181240290833?v=wall

“Hands up who think Ireland deserve the place in the 2010 World Cup.”

It didn’t have to be like this you know, once Ireland and France were allies united against the common enemy;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/03/years-of-french.html

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

Armistice Day 2009 - End of a generation

The passing of the First World War generation was marked by a special memorial service at Westminster Abbey today as millions of people across Britain and Europe observed the two-minute Armistice Day silence.

Ninety-one years after the guns fell silent at 11am on 11th November, 1918, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh joined Gordon Brown, senior politicians and the heads of the armed forces in the solemn ceremony which commemorated the passing of the final three veterans of the war living in Britain, who all died this year. William Stone died in January, aged 108, followed in July by Henry Allingham, 113, and Harry Patch, 111. The only remaining British-born survivor of the war, former seaman Claude Choules, who is 108 now lives in Australia.


Poppies in the fountains at Trafalgar Square

Few can have been unmoved by the poignant sight at the last commemoration at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London of these last surviving veterans of the First World War joining serving soldiers in current conflicts to mark the 90th anniversary of the day peace returned to Europe. Then Henry Allingham, Harry Patch and Bill Stone led the nation as it remembered the sacrifices made by the 1914-1918 generation. They each represented the armed service they belonged to - for Mr Allingham the Royal Air Force, Mr Patch the Army and Mr Stone the Royal Navy. All three men laid wreaths at the Cenotaph in central London to commemorate Armistice Day. Sadly, but not too surprisingly, all have now died since that ceremony.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/07/farewell-old-soldiers.html


Henry Allingham, Harry Patch and Bill Stone

Being in Westminster and not too far from the Abbey which was the venue for the ceremonies you notice the minutiae of these occasions, the police checking lampposts and sealing manhole covers before hand, the veterans with their medals heading to the ceremony, the Guards colour party in great coats and bearskins marching briskly along the footpath from Wellington Barracks, the ambassador’s cars with their flags going down Toothill Street and the boom of the field in Green Park announcing at 11 the beginning of the silence and two minutes later the boom announcing it ending. Why Gordon Brown’s car passed along Petty France this morning on his way to the Abbey taking a different route from the back of Downing Street to the front of the Abbey. As is the way here these ceremonies are well oiled and practiced with no need for self important motorcades or grandiosity. Wars are and, we sometimes forget, have always been controversial but the orchestrated personal attacks on Gordon Brown by Rupert Murdoch and the tatty Sun “newspaper” represents a new low by the Dirty Digger and his hired help who arrogantly feel they can manipulate the British Public and British Democracy.


Theipval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme

But none of this controversy about current military engagements should in any way to detract from the personal heroism or sacrifice of soldiers in battle and it is right that their bravery is commemorated each year on Armistice Sunday, the service held on the Sunday closest to Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of the fighting in World War 1 at 11.00 am on the 11th November 1918. Indeed when you read the obituaries of those who served in the wars and the enormous responsibilities and decisions they had to undertake at a tender age you somehow feel that those of us whose lives have not been tempered by war have somehow led shallow lives by contrast. However we largely read about those who survive, not those who perished.

This was brought home to me some years ago when I made a personal journey to the battle fields for there were deaths on both sides of my family in the First World War. My wife’s great uncle Edward Kenny who died with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and my Great Uncle, James McMahon who died with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers at Beaurevoir in the Ainse 5 weeks before the end of the war in 1918.


Private Edward Kenny

Private Edward Kenny, originally from Edenderry, Co. Offaly had fallen with the 2nd. Bn. Argyle & Sutherland Highlanders, at the Somme on the 27th August 1916 and he’s commemorated alongside 72,088 others at the dramatic “Monument to the Fallen” memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens at Thiepval on the D73 road between Baupaume and Albert. This monument is for soldiers who fell at the Somme who have no known grave or were not identified and his name is inscribed on panel 15C. The entry in "Ireland's Memorial Record" shows he was 24 when he died. To escape from poverty in Ireland they had moved to Bonnybridge near Glasgow and worked in the summer months as “tattie hokers”, the term for agricultural labourer’s who worked on the back breaking potato (tatties in the Scots dialect) harvest for bed and board and low wages. He joined up with the venerable Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders who are based at Scotland’s historic Stirling Castle and is commemorated on the Roll of Honour there and at The Scottish War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle. Disgracefully, to visit the latter you have to pay an expensive admission charge into the tourist theme park which is the modern Edinburgh Castle. We were able to trace his war record from a photo which showed the distinctive hat band of the Argyle and Sutherlands. His brother (my wife’s maternal grandfather) served in the Merchant Navy during the war and survived to live to a ripe old age.


Edward Kenny's War record Card - Transferred to France 13/9/1915 - KIA 27/8/1916


Edward Kenny commemorated in "Ireland's Memorial Record" Click to see a larger image

My great uncle who fell in WW1 was Private James Mc Mahon of the 6th. Bn. Royal Dublin Fusiliers and by coincidence he hailed from Clara, Co. Offaly, the same county as my wife’s great uncle. Unlike my wife’s relative James McMahon has a grave in the Aisne, the Department beyond the Somme whose capital is Cambrai and where the front line had stopped when the hostilities ended with the Armistice at 11 in the morning on the 11th November 1918. James McMahon was killed on the 8th October 1918 at a village called Beaurevoir, one of roundly 90 young Dublin Fusiliers who were killed from the 8th to 11th October and are buried with him in the cemetery. He was killed, aged 20, just over 4 weeks from the end of the war taking part in the so called “March to Victory” which lasted for 100 days until the Armistice. While not obvious today when viewing the sleepy countryside, in 1918 this was the last part of the fortified Hindenburg Line being attacked by tired and inexperienced British Troops resulting in disproportionate casualties amongst the attackers.


James McMahon's grave Beaurevoir, Aisne, France

Like all the Commonwealth cemeteries it is beautifully maintained and lies on the edge of the village with the standard layout of the Cross of Remembrance and a shelter for visitors which also holds the Book of Remembrance. James lies in a row of other Dublin Fusiliers aged from 18 to 21 with his name on the headstone given as “B. J. McMahon”. I wasn’t expecting to feel a great deal of connection with somebody who died so many years before I was born but being there amongst the graves of so many young Irish soldiers who all died on the 8th October 1918 was surprisingly moving.


James McMahon commemorated in "Ireland's Memorial Record"

In our fallen relatives home towns of Edenderry and Clara there are still “British Legion” houses provided for ex-soldiers and their families and in the decades of poverty and economic stagnation many Irish families were quietly grateful for the “War Pensions” they received. Ireland was neutral during the Second World War but many served in the British forces and many also worked in England both to survive and help the war effort including my Grandfather and two uncles who travelled on British Legion travel warrants and worked for the electronics firm Lucas in Birmingham during the war whilst living in a company dormitory. My father at the age of ten and his family on the other hand came in the other direction as refugees from the devastating blitz in Coventry.



On Armistice Day I too am proud to wear a poppy not in support of British Militarism or to legitimise the wanton waste of life in war. Rather I wear it to remember the great sacrifice of Edward Kenny and James McMahon and all their comrades who made a brave personal choice to fight for the greater freedom of humanity and paid the ultimate price for their beliefs.


Gurkha Tul Bahadur Pun VC

I leave the last word to the “Last Tommy” Harry Patch who thought that his comrade’s sacrifice had been in vain because what the world achieved was not “Peace in our Time” but rather it set the scene for the conflict of WW11. He expressed himself movingly and plainly in interviews in 2004;


Harry Patch 1898 - 2009

“I was taken back to England to convalesce. When the war ended, I don't know if I was more relieved that we'd won or that I didn't have to go back. Passchendaele was a disastrous battle — thousands and thousands of young lives were lost. It makes me angry. Earlier this year, I went back to Ypres to shake the hand of Herr Kuentz, Germany's only surviving veteran from the war. It was emotional. He is 107. We've had 87 years to think what war is. To me, it's a licence to go out and murder. Why should the British government call me up and take me out to a battlefield to shoot a man I never knew, whose language I couldn't speak? All those lives lost for a war finished over a table. Now what is the sense in that?"

......."It wasn’t worth it. No war is worth it. No war is worth the loss of a couple of lives let alone thousands. T’isn’t worth it … the First World War, if you boil it down, what was it? Nothing but a family row. That’s what caused it. The Second World War – Hitler wanted to govern Europe, nothing to it. I would have taken the Kaiser, his son, Hitler and the people on his side … and bloody shot them. Out the way and saved millions of lives. T’isn’t worth it."

See also;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/towards-somme-personal-journey.html