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Tue 06 Jun 2010An Irishman's Diary
ON AN aptly damp day in the Rhodope mountains southwest of Sofia, with the tall trees all around us dripping wet, we stood at the grave of James Bourchier on a hill just above the spectacular fortress monastery of Rila as Geoffrey Keating, Ireland’s Ambassador to Bulgaria, reminded us why we were there.
Bourchier, from Anglo-Irish stock in Bruff, Co Limerick, was the London Timescorrespondent in the Balkans and became the staunchest and most faithful friend Bulgaria ever had, in the words of his biographer, Lady Elinor Grogan. When he died in Sofia in 1920, he was given the kind of send-off that few journalists ever get.
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