Mutiny that spawned a bounty of fresh fish
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but we need to talk about Ulysses. Only briefly, I promise. This concerns the time I found myself in a pub with a couple of gents who worked as English teachers. During the course of the conversation, I happened to mention that I’d never read Joyce’s account of the fictional Leopold Bloom’s perambulations around Dublin on June 16, 1904. ‘I really envy you,’ said one of my new drinking buddies, looking all misty-eyed. Before I had time to say that it couldn’t actually be that bad, he continued with a line I hadn’t seen coming: ‘You’ve got such a treat ahead of you.’ Twenty years on, I’ll still have to take his word for it. Whereas Ulysses remains revered as one of the great works of literature,
Battleship Potemkin inspires a similar devotion among a certain type of film fan. Or, to be more specific, the sort of pretentious tosser who’s happy to be referred to as a cinephile.
I’m able to speak with a little more authority about Eisenstein’s silent movie than I can about Joyce’s book, given that I have actually seen the film. Well, the first few minutes of it anyway.
You’re no doubt aware that it is based on the real-life 1905 incident when an Imperial Russian Navy crew staged a mutiny against their officers. Funny thing is, though, the film is so boring that I presume it must have provoked any number of mutinies itself by ordinary cinema-goers.
Maybe that was the director’s intention. Symbolism or something, probably. Or life imitating art imitating life, if you will.
One of the men who took part in the mutiny was Ivan Beshoff, then aged 22. He had been born near Odessa and, after abandoning his chemistry studies, joined the navy and worked in the engine room of the Potemkin. According to his own account, Ivan fled through Turkey to London after the revolt before arriving in Dublin in 1913.
Though he was at first employed by a Russian oil distribution company – which led to him being arrested twice on suspicion of spying – that work dried up at the start of World War II. It was at this point that he opened a fish and chip shop on the North Strand Road, although the premises was bombed during the Luftwaffe raid in May 1941 which killed 28 people and destroyed or damaged 300 buildings.
Ivan moved on and the business expanded over the years. By the time he died in October 1987 at the age of 104 – the last member of the Potemkin mutineers to die – the Beshoff name was a familiar one to Dubliners. And still is. Various descendants own chippers across the capital, while in Howth there is a rather more ambitious operation.
Beshoffs The Market, which stands at the near end of the West Pier, is basically an upmarket food shop. There’s an extensive fresh fish counter, as well as a selection of free-range meat and organic fruit and veg for sale. Next door, there is a stand-alone restaurant run by the same owners.
But my destination was Beshoffs Market Kitchen, which is essentially a seafood tapas bar at the back of the shop. It consists of around a dozen stools at a marble-topped counter that runs the width of the room, half a dozen high tables dotted around the floor and not much else. Breakfast is served until 11.30am, lunch from noon onwards. Choices on the menu include Carlingford oysters, almonds that have been both smoked and roasted, marinated anchovies, fried calamari and a daily fish special. The compact drinks list features five white and six red wines, Guinness and Peroni on draught and a small selection of spirits and bottled beer.
Anyway, one of us went for the lobster risotto, the other two for scampi with a side order of chips. The risotto was the more substantial of the dishes, but the scampi were very, very good. They tasted so fresh, in fact, that I was almost disappointed that they weren’t actually twitching on the plate. And, of course, a few more of them would have been nice. Our plentiful portions of chips were absolutely fine. Service from a very pleasant Venezuelan chap was excellent.
One other thing. I’d previously been here during the summer months when there were plenty of tourists and assorted daytrippers knocking about. Only a couple of tables were occupied when we arrived this time, one of them by a youngish priest with an American accent dining solo. No, I can’t explain why a padre having a bite to eat on his own seems worthy of comment, but all three of us remarked upon it the time. Maybe we were just surprised he hadn’t got a dollybird with him.