WHEN Irish soccer fans visit Sofia next June, some may find themselves strolling along James Bourchier Boulevard. A leafy thoroughfare in an upmarket part of town, this would be a good place to own an apartment. But the name also hints at a time when Irish investment in Bulgaria was about a lot more than buying property, writes Frank McNally
The James David Bourchier it commemorates was born in Bruff, Co Limerick, in 1850. How he became a Bulgarian hero is a strange story, one in which deafness played a part. At any rate, he ended his days in Sofia. And when he died there in 1920, soon after his 70th birthday, it was a cause of national mourning.
When the news broke, crowds gathered outside the Grand Hotel Bulgarie, which had been his second home for many years. He was given a state funeral, in the Orthodox tradition. Later, thousands lined the route as the cortege wound its way towards the snow-capped Rhodope mountains, and a grave he had chosen himself.
Just outside the walls of Rila monastery, the graveyard was and is a staggeringly beautiful place, sacred to Bulgarian Christianity. His burial there was a unique honour, personally approved by the king. That an Irishman should have risen to such heroic status in Bulgaria seems unlikely enough. The wonder only deepens when we find he was a journalist.
Not that he started his career as one. But it was through journalism that he discovered his adopted country. And it was through journalism he acquired the extraordinary influence in Balkan affairs that made him the envy of diplomats, up to the time when he acted - unsuccessfully - as Bulgaria's unofficial representative at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.
Educated (like Beckett and Wilde) at Portora Royal, Enniskillen, and Trinity College Dublin, Bourchier might have become a lawyer but for his loss of hearing - apparently the legacy of a cold he had suffered years earlier, following an attack of measles. The same problem also thwarted a subsequent career as a teacher at Eton, although he persisted there for 10 years.
By then he had dabbled in journalism. And at the age of 38, a Balkan assignment for the London Times changed his life. He fell first for the beauty of Bulgaria; then, at a time when nationalism was on the rise, for its cause. During the next 30 years, he acquired an encyclopaedic knowledge of the region (literally — he wrote the Britannica entries for several Balkan countries) and an ever-growing political influence.
TO ECHO a much more recent controversy, closer to home, Bourchier was both a journalist and a "player", someone who was in a position to influence the events he covered. In fairness to his independence, however, he managed at different times to antagonise both his host country and the British establishment he had left behind.
During Bourchier's early years as a correspondent, the head of the Times foreign department had to defend him against official criticism from Sofia: reminding him that, in journalism, this was a badge of honour: "If you do your duty, you will not satisfy the palace. Already I have received complaints about your telegrams, and I have replied that I have full confidence in your judgment and impartiality. To this I have added that I do not believe any man with the independence. . .requisite in a Times correspondent can possibly satisfy the authorities." (In best cold-blooded journalistic style, the same superior later suggested that "as the spirit of political assassination seems to be abroad in Bulgaria", Bourchier might be so good as to file an advance obituary for Prince Ferdinand, just to be on the safe side.)
But the British establishment would later worry that its man had gone native. By the end of his career, the Limerick man's critics included the British ambassador in Sofia: here - in a letter to his foreign secretary in 1919 - complaining about "Mr J.D. Bourchier. . . who, after too long a residence in Bulgaria had learned to regard himself as infallible and, possibly owning to his growing aural infirmity, was apt to grasp only one side of a question - that which appealed to him personally - and was consequently unsuited to instruct public opinion. I say the above advisedly, being aware that in many localities in this country the name of Bourchier is revered. . . At one village, a bed where he slept is, I am credibly informed, regarded by the inhabitants as almost a shrine, where one could expect to find candles burning."
Whatever about candles, Bourchier's memory was subsequently honoured in many other ways by the country he loved. Along with the grave and the boulevard, he is today commemorated by a plaque where the Grand Hotel Bulgarie formerly stood. He has also been the subject of a series of stamps. And, in perhaps the ultimate tribute from Bulgarians, he once even had a brand of cigarettes named after him.
Somewhat belatedly, his native country is at last getting in on the act. "James Bourchier - A Life Dedicated to Bulgaria" — is the subject of an exhibition now running at the National Library in Dublin. It was formally opened on Monday night, in the presence of the Bulgarian ambassador, Mr Emil Yalnazov, by my former Irish Times colleague Michael Foley, now of the Dublin Institute of Technology. An expert on Bourchier, Michael has furnished much of the information for this Diary - although any mistakes are, of course, my own.