Like orangutans, politicians are best advised to stay in their natural habitat. When they stray from Leinster House or their constituency offices, things can get out of hand. Just ask the Oireachtas members who attended the infamous Golfgate dinner during the Covid pandemic. They should have learned from their predecessors who got embroiled with Dr Achmet Borumborad and his Turkish baths. The unfortunate politicians who were wined and dined by that good doctor found themselves in hot water – or, should we say, very cold water?
But let’s rewind a little to the arrival of Dr Borumborad in Ireland. According to the Dictionary of Irish Biography, his presence in Dublin was first noted in 1769, when he appeared to be operating a medical practice of sorts and was promoting the healing properties of steam baths in Finglas.
The judge and MP Sir Jonah Barrington wrote very entertainingly about him in his memoirs. Barrington recalled him telling people he had fled from Constantinople and wanted to popularise hot and cold sea-water baths in Dublin. Barrington said he had never seen a more stately-looking Turk, although one would imagine there was not much competition when it came to regal-looking Turkish people in Dublin at that time.
He wrote that Dr Borumborad wore an impressive turban and was “the first Turk who had ever walked the streets of Dublin in his native costume”. Barrington added: “He was in height considerably above six feet, rather pompous in his gait, and apparently powerful; an immense black beard covering his chin and upper lip.”
The strange case of Dr Achmet Borumborad and his Dublin-based Turkish baths
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By all accounts, he was a very likable chap and women started to compare their husbands most unfavourably to him. A previously fine husband was a “wretched, contemptible, close-shaven pigmy in comparison with the immensity of the doctor’s figure and whiskers”, Barrington wrote.
Thanks to his charm, the doctor had no trouble getting a grant from parliament to get his Turkish baths up and running on Bachelors Walk in 1771.
He regularly petitioned parliamentarians for more support and it was always forthcoming. In return, he would host them at extravagant gatherings in his saloon, offering the finest dinner, drinks and entertainment.
It was on one of those occasions when all hell broke loose. Luckily for us, Barrington’s brother was staying at the baths’ lodging rooms on that night, so the memoirist had a first-hand account of the debacle. Almost 30 politicians were attending the dinner and the champagne and claret flowed. In fact, the wine flowed so much that Dr Borumborad had to go to his cellar for another dozen bottles.
This was as good a chance as any for the more sober guests to sneak away and that was the plan of Sir John S Hamilton. Unfortunately, he failed spectacularly in his effort at an Irish goodbye.
As is obligatory in these situations, when his colleagues saw him leaving they became determined to stop him. In his haste to get away, he opened the wrong door and rushed out. Instead of arriving onto the street, he plunged into the cold seawater bath.
The men who tried to stop him were travelling too fast to avoid a similar fate and some of them tumbled into the bath after him while others skidded to a stop.
Dr Borumborad and his servants were mystified to find the guests gone when they returned from the cellar laden with wine. Following the commotion, he found 18 or 19 parliamentarians bobbing around in the bath like corks or scrambling to get out like mice that had fallen into a basin.
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Despite his best efforts at mollifying them, Dr Borumborad’s good name was blackened and he struggled to get political support for his venture after that.
But while his professional life was in tatters, his love life was faring better. He fell for a Miss Hartigan and declared he would become a Christian for her. True to his word, he turned up at her home clean-shaven and wearing a suit.
According to Barrington, he confided in her that he was already as good a Christian as the Archbishop. “I’m your own countryman, sure enough! Mr Patrick Joyce from Kilkenny county – the devil a Turk any more than yourself, my sweet angel!”
What led Patrick Joyce to pretend to be Turkish is anyone’s guess, but one account suggested he had spent some time in what is now Izmir in Turkey. As for his romance with Miss Hartigan, Barrington assured his readers they became a very loving and happy couple.
The Bachelors Walk baths are long gone, of course. And while the politicians were once shocked senseless by the cold water, today you are more likely to go into shock at the price of a cup of coffee on the same street.
