Did you ever hear the one about the Armenian law student who fled Turkey over a hundred years ago, set up a sweet shop in Cork and became world famous? The story of Harutiun Batmazian and his shop Hadji Bey will be the subject of a documentary on TG4 in December.

Filming is taking place this month in and around Cork but the director of the programme is looking for a loan of any photographs, artifacts, posters, adverts, letters or film footage from the shop that Corkonians have. RoseAnn Foley would also love to hear any anecdotes or stories that people have about the shop, its founder or its product.

“It’s a fascinating story I heard about, so I decided to make a programme about it. I’m from Waterford but I’d heard of the sweets all my life. People have already been calling me with stories and anecdotes about the shop,” she said.

“If your readers have old photographs of the shop, of Harutiun Batmazian himself, of members of his family, or any artifacts from the shop on McCurtain Street, I’d love to hear from them.”

RoseAnn got the idea to make the programme after talking to her friend Rose Daly, who runs The Chocolate Shop in the English Market with her husband Niall. They reported that they got loads of enquires about Hadji Bey sweets at Christmas and people were full stories about the shop and the Turkish Delight sold there.

The founder of Hadji Beys, Harutiun Batmazian, was born in Armenia. As a young man he went to Constantinople, now Istanbul, to go to college to study law. While there he worked in a shop that sold Turkish Delights and learned how to make the sweets.

He was forced to flee the Ottoman Empire when the Turks instigated pogroms against Christian Armenians.

He arrived in Cork around the time of the International Exhibition of 1902-3. He had his own stall at the exhibition. Afterwards, he started manufacturing his own sweets and selling then.

Despite having no English, he set up his sweet shop, Hadji Bey et Cie on MacCurtain Street in what is now the Metropole Hotel and lived at St Patrick’s Terrace. The store subsequently became a Cork institution.

The Hadji Bey products became successful and much sought after throughout Ireland, where the business thrived for several decades. Harutiun’s son, Edward, took over the family business and ran it until the 1970s. After his retirement, the company went into decline and until recently it was a distant memory.

Hadji Bey was relaunched last year by a Kildare-based company, Urney Chocolates, using the original ornate packaging. The sweets are now for sale in The Chocolate Shop in the English Market.

The half hour documentary will be broadcast on Sunday, 18 December on TG4.

To get in contact with RoseAnn Foley email her at [email protected]

Cork Independent; September 8, 2011