From the archive, 17 January 1938: Bere Island: the Irish Gibraltar

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 17 January 1938The western promontories of County Cork and County Kerry stretch out into the Atlantic like the fingers of a hand. Between two of the fingers is a crumb of land, seven miles by one, and on a hill at the eastern end of it is an odd thing: a flagstaff with a Union Jack. Near the flagstaff are a hard tennis court, a squash court, and the other buildings suitable to an outpost of Empire. For that is what Bere Island is: a remote little Irish Gibraltar commanding with its guns the entrance to the huge, natural harbour of Bantry Bay.The War Office and the Royal Engineers between them have put up buildings about which there is nothing remotely Irish. They suggest blazing heat on a parched plain, with one vulture high overhead (the Kipling landscape), or the camps on Salisbury Plain. It is strange to stand by the flagstaff and to see below neither India nor Salisbury Plain, to see instead the tangle on half-tide rocks and the mists moving up and over the Caha Mountains.The people of the island are Irish. The garrison is not. The Troubles are fifteen years old but there are hints of them still. The war memorials in County Cork, for instance, say nothing about King and country. They say, "Fell in action in the English war"; that means killed by regular soldiers. Or "Murdered by the British forces"; that means the Black and Tans. The other war has no memorials. But the garrison are sensible folk, and memories are fading. That one can say.British Tommies and Irish peasants are sufficiently unlike each other, but sometimes others more strange come to the island. One day a Negro came into the shop to buy tobacco. He was one of the crew of a Cardiff steamer which two or three times a year brought coal to the coal yard that had been built on an islet in the harbour. The Irish seemed to regard him as not much more surprising than the British were. When the ship had finished discharging its coal he went back to his wife in Cardiff.The shop was the centre of life in the village, and there one met strangers when any came. One day a man was there dressed in loose blue trousers, pink shirt, rope-soled shoes, and a beret. He was not tall but looked powerful, and had those curious features ? thin, hooked nose, wide cheeks, and pointed chin ? which belong to only one European race, the Basques. I hope the Basque is still alive. I liked him. He made a memorable impression on me even in a place of which so many impressions are memorable.Stephen BoneCorkDefence policyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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