An Irish Diary: Ieper, a 100-year-old medieval city

The Belgian city of Ieper (Ypres) was almost completely flattened during the first World War. By the winter of 1918, a person on a horse could look right across the city, such was the devastation wrought by four years of brutal fighting.

Landmarks such as the Cloth Hall, the largest non-religious Gothic building in Europe, lay in ruins. Some believed that the city should be left as it was, as “sacred ground” and a symbol of the destructive power of war.

The British minister of munitions, Winston Churchill, wanted to acquire the ruined city for the British empire as a memorial and for the Belgians to construct a new city alongside the old one. However, it was decided to reconstruct the city in the traditional style with the city architect stating that he wanted it to look “Flemish, medieval and renaissance” in appearance.

Ieper’s pre-war population stood at around 17,000. As the fighting intensified from November 1914, those who could leave did so, fleeing initially to the nearby towns of Poperinge, Kortrijk and Ostend. Those who remained, sheltered in their cellars or in the bunkers of the city’s ramparts. The last remaining inhabitants were evacuated in May 1915.

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The nuns of the city’s Benedictine Abbey, known as the ‘Irish Dames of Ypres’, made their way to Ireland and eventually settled in Kylemore Abbey in Connemara. One of the nuns who found safety in Ireland was a niece of the nationalist MP John Redmond.

After the war, it took time for Ieper to rise again. People were slow to return as housing was a major issue. Wooden huts started to be constructed in the spring of 1919 and corrugated Nissen huts were also erected.

A collection of wooden huts on the Minneplein, a large field just outside the city walls, provided temporary accommodation for those who were building their own homes in the city. These huts, which numbered in the hundreds, also provided provisional lodgings for the town hall, hotel, post office, cafes, St Martin’s Church, police force and two schools.

Ieper’s streets eventually filled with houses of yellow brick with their distinctive stepped gable or crow-stepped gable. In many cases, wrought iron embellishments or plaques were added to the gables. These show the year of construction. It is strange to see so many 100-year-old houses in a medieval city but these markers remind us of the history of the conflict and the role the city played in it.

While many of the houses were finished in the 1920s, it took some decades for the larger buildings to be completed. Among these were the Cloth Hall (Lakenhalle), which was constructed between 1250 and 1304. Used as a storehouse and market for wool and cloth, its belfry served many functions including as a treasury, meeting room for the aldermen, armoury, bell chamber and watchtower. Having been almost completely destroyed in the war, it was only fully reconstructed in 1967.

While the British did not have their way in persuading the local authorities to leave the city as a ruin, they were allocated space to construct a memorial to fallen British soldiers. The Menin Gate (Menenpoort), which is a memorial to the missing, was inaugurated in July 1927.

The names of some 54,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers, whose graves are unknown, were hand carved into stone panels on the monument. Historian Dominiek Dendooven has described it as the “most important British war monument in Belgium”.

A group of boys from Dublin travelled to the city in the same month as the monument was unveiled. Members of the 14th Dublin Company (St George’s) of the Boys’ Brigade left Dún Laoghaire on July 14th, 1927, and travelled via Holyhead, London, Dover and Ostend.

The party numbered 45 altogether (including four officers) and they were accommodated in a military barracks in Ieper. They laid a wreath at the Menin Gate and the boys brought an Irish blackthorn stick with them to present to the burgomaster (mayor) as a token of their appreciation for his hospitality.

In return, they were presented with a large medal in a case. On the front, the medal contained a representation of the Cloth Hall before the war. On the reverse side, it was inscribed: “From the people of Ypres.” There are some mementoes of the boys’ visit on display in the small redbrick St Thomas’s Church on Cathal Brugha Street.

One of the leaders of the group stated that the boys enjoyed themselves but they had to be supervised as they were eager to collect souvenirs. At that time, bombs were still being found in the ruins of the once great Cloth Hall.

Two brothers who ran a photography business, known as Antony d’Ypres, photographed their native town before, during and after the war. Their photographs provide a wonderful insight into the destruction inflicted on the city and its resurrection.