The arrival the French barque Belem will launch a week-long French festival in Dublin to mark the 50th anniversary of Alliance Française in Ireland, writes LORNA SIGGINS
IT HAS sailed with turf boats from south Connemara, and it has carried rum from the west Indies and cocoa from Brazil. Weather permitting today, the three-masted barque Belemwill berth on the Liffey to mark 50 years of the Alliance Française in Ireland.
On board are 48 apprentices, 13 of them Irish. They left the north-west French port of Roscoff last Friday on the voyage north across the English Channel and up the Irish Sea, and will be welcomed ashore by the French ambassador to Ireland, Yvon Roe d’Albert.
However tough they may have found their journey, the sailors will require more stamina for three days of festivities on the Liffey bank. As Alliance Française’s assistant director Christine Weld explains, Dublin’s Spencer Dock will become “a little bit of Paris”, complete with a French market on its “boulevard”, music, games of petanque and boule lyonnaise, and it will be transformed into an open air dance hall, the Guinguette, by nightfall.
Alliance Française in Ireland has good reason to celebrate, as the third largest branch in the French cultural and linguistic network throughout Europe after Paris and Brussels. It can trace its origins back further than five decades; an Alliance Française committee was established in Ireland in 1912, and the Dublin French Society was founded by the then French consul a decade later.
Its familiar Kildare Street headquarters has been home to many Franco-Irish cultural events, and Alliance Française has established a presence in Cork, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick, Waterford and Wexford. As part of its celebrations, it commissioned the barque Belemto undertake a symbolic voyage from France to Ireland.
Belem's background includes strong French and Irish links. It was built at Chantenay-sur-Loire, near Nantes, and on its maiden voyage in 1896-7, it transported a cargo of "she-mules" from Montevideo to the Brazilian city after which it was named. Sadly, after its safe berthing, a fire destroyed the hold and killed all the animals, so the ship had to return to Nantes for repairs.
As a merchant vessel, it crossed the Atlantic 33 times from 1896 to 1913, bearing Brazilian cocoa, West Indian rum and sugar.
In 1914, it was sold to the Duke of Westminster, who converted it to a private yacht and had it fitted with engines and a main deckhouse. In 1921, it was acquired by Arthur Ernest Guinness, whose father, Edward, was chairman of the family brewery.
Guinness renamed it Fantome IIand, in 1923, he undertook a global circumnavigation with his wife, Marie Clotilde, and three daughters, nicknamed the "Golden Guinness girls". When he died in 1949, the yacht, moored at Seattle, Washington, was passed to his family, but the state of Washington claimed part of its value as inheritance tax.
The ship was sold to the Italian Cini Foundation in 1951, and it became a training vessel. However, it returned to the French flag with its original name in 1979, when it was acquired by a special foundation, sponsored by the French bank Caisses d’Epargne.
Much of the barque is true to its original, although its wooden masts have been replaced by steel. Permanent crew comprises 16 experienced officers and men, chosen from the ranks of the French merchant navy to work with up to 48 trainees at any time.
The BelemFoundation's remit is to promote "knowledge and understanding of France's maritime heritage".
The barque has been a familiar visitor to Irish waters even since the Guinness connection. It was on the start line for the Waterford Tall Ships race in 2005, and participated in Kinvara’s Cruinniú na mBád several years later, when it also berthed in Galway docks.
For supporters of the concept of sail training – offering those of all backgrounds an opportunity to spend time at sea – the Belem's current visit will have added pathos. This week, a group of Irish divers plan to return the bell, ship's wheel and compass belonging to the Irish sail training brigantine, Asgard II, to the State.
After the Asgard IIsinking in September 2008, the Government cancelled plans to replace it, returned the €3.8 million insurance payment to central coffers and abandoned sail training altogether in the last Budget. The 25 crew and trainees from Asgard IIwere taken by French rescue services to the island of Belle-Île en Mer, off Brittany, 12 miles south of the location where the ship began taking water.
Coincidentally, as part of the Alliance Française cultural programme, an exhibition of images of Belle-Île by the late photojournalist Pierre Jamet, (1910-2000) is on display at 1 Kildare St, Dublin until September 10th.
Details of the Alliance Française festival are on alliance-francaise.ie. Traditional boatcraft in Ireland will be celebrated in west Cork this weekend at the Glandore Classic Boat Summer School on the theme ‘Sunken Treasure’
- Swashbuckler – Read Ronan Butler's log of the Belemvoyage in The Irish TimesSaturday Magazine on Saturday
