Why we should get in touch with our inner Hadji Bey for the future

The casually intertwined lives of Haratun Batmazian and my grandfather show us a Cork throbbing with opportunity as part of the British Empire.... Irish independence was terrible for Cork. From then on Dublin... sucked the energy out of the rest of the country.

JUST a small, round yellow box in a Christmas hamper, but what a flood of memories! Straight away I was back in our old sitting-room some Christmas in the distant past. My father had got the same small, round yellow box as a present and he was holding it aloft saying, “Hadji Bey!”

As a child we can take the temperature of our parents very well. I knew this wasn’t just politeness. He was stirred. I didn’t even like that powdery Turkish Delight, but I understood that Hadji Bey was a name with a special meaning for my father.