In 1793 the French revolutionaries took the bells down from the churches of Mesen. They brought them to Armentieres, where they were melted down to make cannons.
Today a new carillon of 51 bells rings out from the church tower of St Nicholas in Mesen (or Messines, as it is known to the French) across the fields of northern Flanders, a peal for peace and universal brotherhood. And in September they will be joined by another, the Ireland Peace Bell, courtesy of a £13,000 grant from the Department of the Taoiseach.
Currently in the foundry, the Irish bell will weigh in at some 700kg and have a diameter of more than one metre. It will strike F sharp, and joins another of the carillon's bigger bells contributed last year by Newtownards District Council. It rings G.
Just a few hundred yards away, on the edge of the small town overlooking the salient where the Ulster and Irish divisions fought and died side by side in 1917, is the Irish peace tower, inaugurated last November by the President, Mrs McAleese.
The bells project is the brainchild and passion of the St Nicholas church warden, Mr Albert Gherkhiere, who is delighted by the Irish gift. He speaks movingly of the rationale for the carillon, the 500,000 young people from all over the world who died in Flanders fields.
"I don't want any more guns," he says, "I saw our new carillon as an appeal for reconciliation in the world."
Since he launched his appeal in 1984 he has raised money for individual bells from as far afield as New Zealand, from governments, from schools in England and regiments, from groups such as the Belgo-Bavarian Association or Christian Democrats for Europe (the "Europa" bell), and even from individual families.
Mr Gherkhiere, whose great aunt is from Co Clare, has been an indefatigable campaigner who simply refused to give up and whose dogged persistence in insisting that there should be an Irish bell paid off when he lobbied the President and other Irish luminaries at the inauguration of the tower.
Officials say that the donation was undoubtedly the fruit of the success of that day and the warmth with which the Irish tower initiative has been greeted locally.
The money is, like the cash for the tower, from an old fund for the care of veterans, the Soldiers' and Sailors' Fund. The remnants of the fund, which is being wound up by the Department of the Taoiseach, is being spent on reconciliation projects.
