Paula Farquharson with chalice for Irish Mass at the Palatine Chapel. Photo: Courtesy of PGIL/Michaël Alesi/Palais Princier
Recently discovered in a cardboard box and auctioned in the UK, the chalice will be the subject of a lecture at the Princess Grace Irish Library by Dr Krasnodębska-D’Aughton, University College Cork (UCC), on Wednesday January 22, at 7pm.
Meet old and new friends at the library and discover the mystery behind one of the few remaining chalices from the 15th century.
Earlier in January, the Ó Learghusa Chalice was used to celebrate mass in the private chapel of the Prince’s Palace in Monaco in the presence of Prince Albert II and the Princess of Hanover. And, as Paula Farquharson, director of the Princess Grace Irish Library, points out, it was the first time that mass was celebrated in Europe with the chalice for centuries.
“Before King Henry VIII’s divorce led to the reformation and forced the Catholic Church in Ireland to go underground, this medieval chalice was used in friaries and monasteries in Ireland,” explains Paula.
“Later such religious items were either hidden or sent to mainland Europe for safekeeping. Many didn’t survive and were melted down for their silver and gold. This lecture has all the excitement of a turbulent era in history and the audience will have the unique opportunity to see this rare chalice for one evening only before it goes to Ireland for permanent display at Kylemore Abbey.”
Since its purchase in 2021, the chalice has featured in articles and on television in the United States, where it has also gone on exhibition at top universities.
Dr D’Aughton is a Senior Lecturer in the School of History, UCC, who specialises in the cultural and religious history of the Middle Ages. She has published internationally on the Irish mendicant orders, liturgical silver, Irish illuminated manuscripts as well as on manuscripts in Polish libraries.
Tickets €10 (includes a drink after the 45-minute talk) available at the door or online.
While at the library, make sure you check out 40th Anniversary Princess Grace Irish Library: A Tribute To Princess Grace of Monaco (2024; Éditions Des Archives Du Palais De Monaco. The 128-page limited-edition commemorative book will take you on a journey of discovery about Princess Grace from Ireland to America and to Monaco.
It was presented to Prince Albert II and the Princess of Hanover on November 20, 2024, exactly 40 years to the day they inaugurated the Princess Grace Irish Library in the presence of their father Prince Rainier III.
The book is not available to purchase but a copy can be viewed at the library, or download a digital version at http://www.pgil.mc. QR codes lead readers to emotive performances by musicians and students from the Académie Rainier III in Monaco and Technological University Dublin, conservatoire, as well as a special music piece composed by Michael Flatley, titled The Princess Grace Set.
“I have a 100-year plan,” admits Father Hugh of St. Paul’s Monte Carlo. “How does this church serve the community in a hundred years’ time when I’m dead?”
WATCH VIDEO: Father Hugh talks about the Warmies® Prayer Bear Centenary campaign.
As the Oxford native explains, “You create a structure which sustains itself, which is outlooking, confident in its own identity” he explains. “And that confident position allows me to go out and do what I do.”
And he certainly has a gift to “do what I do”. Anyone who’s been to the Anglican church at 22 avenue de Grande-Bretagne since Hugh Bearn arrived in April 2023 would agree.
Under his direction over the past 18 months, all the memorials that were previously sitting on the church floor have been restored and hung by using panels of reclaimed wood from skips. “We are very conscious of not wasting and chucking things away,” he says, adding, “The icon was restored anonymously; all the furnishings were put in anonymously.” Additionally, the 60 x 8-metre church pew cushions were replaced, anonymously, with the previously-loved ones being donated to the SPA (Société Protectrice des Animaux) Monaco.
The three stained-glass altar windows are each being restored, with the third and find panel to be completed in January. “A woman and her half-Scottish husband in Castillon are really superb artists. They restored the windows of Mary Magdalene’s cave up the road [in Sainte-Baume].”
As Father Hugh says, “Slowly slowly, lots of little changes make a big difference.”
It’s not just the aesthetics that are getting all the attention. Father Hugh has put his efforts equally on boosting the calendar of church events. There was the Exeter College Oxford Alumni choir and the Danish Boys choir, a visit from Prince Edward, and Prince Albert, and the Churchill family who attended the inauguration of a memorial, funded by the International Churchill Society, installed in September to mark 150 years since Winston Churchill’s birth. “I think people understand it’s about the church serving the Principality and getting the community together.”
He adds, “When people are focused not on themselves, they can see the goodness of what’s going on.”
Which leads to the Warmies® Prayer Centenary Bear and “a little idea I had”. First, St Paul’s is gearing up for its 100th anniversary – it was built on avenue des Fleurs and dedicated by the Bishop of Gibraltar on February 19, 1925, when the street was re-named avenue de Grande-Bretagne for the occasion. Second, created in 1995, Warmies® is a heatable plush toy that provides a soothing and therapeutic warmth. Warmies® are popular with all ages and were named in February 2024 as GiftBeat’s Best-Selling Toy in the USA for the second consecutive year. And thanks to a member of the congregation, 600 Warmies® were generously donated to the Prayer Bear Centenary Campaign.
“The bear has lavender inside and you stick them in the microwave for maybe 15 seconds,” says Father Hugh. “They’re really good for kids with autism, kids who can’t sleep, adults who can’t sleep.”
The words God is Love in English and Dieu est Amour in French are written on the bear’s chest, with St. Paul’s Church Carlo on the its paw.
For Father Hugh, the Prayer Bear is a way of engaging with the community, engaging with young people and old people. “Who doesn’t want a teddy bear? And with a message of a prayer that says you are never alone. A lot of people are really lonely.”
The church will give the bears to women’s refuges and “people who have real needs, where where they have a really unpleasant existence”.
“The idea is that there’s a 6-year-old kid who gets this teddy bear in La Trinité in Nice. Fast forward 10 years and he’s getting into sex, drugs and rock and roll and he looks at this teddy bear and thinks, ‘Why did someone give me this bear that has God is Love on its paw?’ It’s that sense of sowing a seed of which we will never see the results.”
The bears can be adopted for a donation of €30. The funds raised will go to the St. Vincent de Paul association in Monaco, to help with their homeless and refugee projects. “The teddy bear is a gift that parents can give knowing where the money is going so it’s a win-win good-good situation.”
Father Hugh is most excited about selling the Prayer Bear not online or through social media, but “people having to come and collect them. That physical connection is really important.”
With a laugh, he adds, “If you go into my vicarage, you may open the cupboard and find a bear staring at you.”
Article first published December 15, 2024.
Wednesday December 18 at 5:15 pm: Sunday School Christingle.
Christmas Eve at 7:30 pm: Holy Communion and Carols with refreshments afterwards in St Paul’s House.
Christmas Day at 8 am: Holy Communion.
Christmas Day at 10: 30 am: Holy Communion and Carols with refreshments afterwards in St Paul’s House.
Salon du livre de Monaco co-founders Raphaël Abenhaim and Yvette Cellario.
This year’s Monaco International Book Fair at the Grimaldi Forum brings together 140 authors from 12 countries across the globe. The 13th edition – which is free to the public – kicked off Saturday September 7 with opera, and acknowledgements from Yvette Cellario, a Monegasque who co-founded the event with businessman Raphaël Abenhaim.
The pair first launched the online bookshop, Librairie numérique de Monaco, back in 2011. Following its success, they decided to expand their literary activities and went on to create the Salon du livre de Monaco in 2012.
The objective was to promote all facets of literature. Yvette, who worked for twenty years in the Monaco Town Hall events department, published her first novel “Et Moi, Émois” in 2004. This was followed by an autobiography and several other titles.
Raphaël Abenhaim and the Librairie numérique de Monaco team are on hand this weekend to speak with book lovers about what the online bookshop has to offer.
Volunteer Heidi De Love gives the lowdown on the 10% discount promo on all books throughout September. WATCH VIDEO BELOW: ENGLISH
For the first time in Monaco, members of the Rencontres des Auteurs Francophones are taking part in the book weekend. Founded in 2020 by author Sandrine Mehrez Kukurudz, the New York-based platform is the world’s first French-language literary network set up to promote French-language culture. WATCH VIDEO ABOVE IN ENGLISH: SANDRINE AND RON KUKURUDZ.
One of the Rencontres entourage includes LA-based Dana Ziyashiva. WATCH VIDEO IN ENGLISH.
Another first-time participant is Swiss-based writer Laurence Berger, with a fictional thriller linked to Monaco published in both French and English. WATCH VIDEO BELOW IN ENGLISH WITH LAURENCE BERGER AND LAURENCE GENEVET.
The Monaco International Book Fair runs from 10am to 6pm Saturday, September 7, and Sunday, September 8.
Writers from the Rencontres des Auteurs Francophones.French author Lucien Nasarre.Lawyer by day, writer the rest of the time, Laurence Berger.Heidi De Love volunteering with the fantastic Librairie numérique de Monaco.Well-known personality Laurence Genevet with her first book.Dana Ziyashiva from LA.The 13th edition of the Monaco International Book Fair.
Article first published September 7, 2024.All photos and videos copyright Good News Monaco.
Outside of my immediate family, few deaths have impacted me like the news about Kate on Monday. It was not unexpected yet, still, my knees buckled and time seemed to stop, as if the world was trying to readjust to losing one of its biggest beating hearts.
As expats, few people can share your grief when a person in your native country dies. Friends here can empathise with loss, but it is rare they knew the person or can share stories to help you keep their memory alive. With Kate, we are all mourning and instead of being sad alone, we can be sad together.
Kate made each of us in the community feel like we mattered in this world. We felt special because the core of her being was special, this was her superpower. There is a shared sentiment in the role Kate played: “Kate was the first person I met in Monaco.” “Kate treated everyone the same way, no matter who we are.” “Kate had known my kids since they were babies and always asked how they were doing.” “Une bonne personne, toujours au service et un petit mot pour ses clients.” “Kate introduced me to other people when I didn’t know anyone.”
For me, I had lived in the region for many years before I met “the” Kate Powers. I had heard so much about this American who owned a Tex-Mex restaurant in the port and was not only a childhood friend of the Prince but her mom was close to Grace Kelly. Slightly intimidating? What I remember in meeting her for the first time, and this has always stuck with me, is that Kate was the opposite of what I expected from the jet-set bling-bling crowd of Monaco – instead of resting on her laurels, she was a down to earth, open and a warm human being who instinctively knew when to hug at the right time. Like all of us, she had her insecurities although she was unaware of her beauty. “How can I help?” the tireless champion of kindness would always offer.
Of course pre-restaurant days, there was Kate’s made-for-the-movies life, one that she had hoped to share in writing or a series of video chats. Sitting with her and Annette Anderson one day talking about how to get all Kate’s stories out there, I remember my mouth dropping when she gave me a teaser: “Roman Polanski had called to ask me on a date and my mom grabbed the phone and told him to ‘F-off’ before hanging up. We were living in Switzerland at the time and I snuck out to the party where he was with Jack Nicholson. They were drinking too much so I left but as it was snowing outside and someone had left their keys in a car, I decided to drive home. I hit a snow bank so I had to abandon the car and walk the rest of the way.”
*******
On Monday night, as the tears rolled down my cheeks and dampened my pillows as I tried to fall asleep, I realized that while I wish Kate had stuck around much, much longer than her 68 years, she accomplished in life what we all hope for when we leave this earth: she made a difference. She did not wait until her diagnosis to live the life she wanted. She did not have to learn about spiritual awareness or quickly check off a Bucket List. No, Kate Powers had been evolving every day of her life, and gently nudging us along her path of change for the better.
She did not need to change. The Monegasque could have easily sat back over the years and let Stars’n’Bars, the restaurant she co-founded with Didier Rubiolo nearly 30 years ago, ride on the coattails of the Prince Albert connection. Instead, she rolled up her sleeves to transform the family-friendly eatery as a leading example of what she called “ecolution” in the Principality. It was the first restaurant to have its own urban vegetable garden, and to stop the use of plastic straws and non-biodegradable throwaway coffee cups.
When Covid hit last year, Kate told me, “Lockdown helped us wake up to necessary ecological changes that were more important than economical ones. We need to keep taking steps forward and raise awareness about wellness, whether its ours or the planet’s.” Stars’n’Bars replaced serving industrial sodas (Coca-Cola and Sprite) with only Fizz Bio organic colas made in Bordeaux, which some customers did not appreciate and would even walk out. “I try to explain that we are focusing on sourcing locally. When I tell people not to expect the taste of Coke with our organic soda, at first they are unsure but now they love it.”
That was the Kate effect. She had her way of doing things but she opened the floor for dialogue to educate; and she listened to learn.
*******
The first time I spoke to Kate after learning she had cancer, about six months ago, she was, typically, positive. Much of my connection with Kate was over our shared appreciation of nature and often I would send her a message describing some random observation, a text that I could never send to anyone else (including my husband) because they would think I was crazy. She got it.
Here is what I mean. The day after I learned of her illness, I went for a long swim along Cap Roquebrune, specifically with the intent of putting healing energy into the sea for her. This is my form of meditation. I focused on Kate for the entire 5 kilometres and when I returned to shore, I discovered my safety buoy was no longer attached. That had never happened in my seven years of open water swimming. From my apartment, I could see the orange buoy out there floating on the open sea. I texted Kate to tell her the story and said “Whenever you come across anything orange, know that the universe is your safety buoy.”
Kate replied: “I was biking earlier, talking to the trees and asking for their assistance. I looked up to see orange. Orange is Didier’s favourite colour and he is wearing an orange shirt now! The universe is definitely on my side.”
Half a year later, out on my run yesterday morning, the sunrise across the sea, with the clouds, captivated me and I thought “I’ll share that with Kate.” I stopped in my tracks for a moment before telling myself, I can still share these moments with her, just not in the physical world.
I will honour Kate by trying to follow some of her examples – to continue to raise awareness about our planet’s health, to be kinder and more helpful to each other and, as Kate was no fan of the news and its negativity, share good and positive stories with others. Really, to be the best version of myself possible.
Our friend Kate Powers came into this world with wings; she did not have to earn them, only spread them to get back home. And, knowing Kate like we all do, she will certainly raise the bar for all the other angels.
During his travels and life as an expat in Europe, the Reverend Fergus Butler Gallie stumbled across story after story of the most incredibly heroic clergy. This promoted him to write Priests de la Résistance (2019),a book that TheGuardian calls: “A stirring compendium of the lives of clergy who stood up to Hitler.”
“I realised that, with a couple of exceptions, their stories were totally unknown in the UK, indeed some of them had no record of their deeds written in English. So what began as an attempt to remedy that, became a wider project as I discovered more and more examples,” says the current Vicar of Charlbury with Shorthampton in the diocese of Oxford.
Oxford and Cambridge-educated Fergus has served in churches in Liverpool and Central London, plus in chaplaincy at a school in Kent. And although only 31, the author has penned several articles for major media and written two other books – A Field Guide to the English Clergy: A Compendium of Diverse Eccentrics, Pirates, Prelates and Adventurers; All Anglican, Some Even Practising (2018) and his memoir, Touching Cloth: Confessions and communions of a young priest(2023).
Father Fergus will be giving a talk about the clerical resistance in World War II “and some lighter tales” on Friday, July 12, at St Paul’s Anglican Church in Monaco. He was invited by long-time friend Reverend Hugh Bearn, who says, “Father Fergus is a highly entertaining, witty, a skilled raconteur and a serious historian – a young man who embodies the notion of a traditional priest in the Church of England.”
Do you think history is repeating itself 80 years after the liberation of Europe from totalitarianism?
FBG: Well, I suppose so, but I think we ought to remember that much of Eastern and Central Europe experienced totalitarianism until 40 or so years ago, and Spain 55 years ago: history always repeats itself I think and the sad historical reality is that totalitarianism has actually been the norm, the question is how does one resist it?
History seems split on the view of Pope Pius XII. Some historians view him as ‘Hitler’s Pope’ but recently released historical documents show him as more of a shrewd politician who was able to safeguard the Catholic Church while also providing asylum for some Jewish people when he could. In light of your research, where do you fall on Pope Pius XII?
FBG: Gosh it’s very tricky. I think the real answer is that it’s complicated. I think either viewing him as entirely complicit with Hitler or as a hero are both inaccurate oversimplifications. What I would say is that almost all the leaders of Europe were on tightropes at the time. During the war itself I think the fact that clergy make up by far the largest section of the ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ and the horrific numbers of them killed in concentration camps, etc, speaks for itself in terms of the fact that the Church of which
Pius was head was perhaps the single most important organisation that resisted Nazism. However, I think what is perhaps more damning are his actions towards the end and just after the war where he appears to support clergy who were complicit in war crimes – in particular in Croatia – and allows, knowingly or not, the Vatican to be used as an escape route for those who should have faced justice. The truth is he was a conflicted, complicated character- probably too weak in terms of personality to ever become some sort of Catholic Churchill –but still trying to do his best and sometimes succeeding.
In your research, were any of the priests or nuns excommunicated by the church for helping those of the Jewish faith? If not, doesn’t that say something about the Catholic Church’s sympathies during the war?
FBG: No, clergy were never excommunicated for that and, as I say above, I think there’s is a strong argument to say that the Catholic Church in particular plays the most important resistance role of all in Europe during the Second World War. But I suppose it’s worth realising, as I say in the book, that the Church is about as diverse and widespread an institution as you can find by its very nature. There were plenty of clergy who collaborated very willingly alongside the heroes who resisted. The Church’s main issue is that it’s filled with humans who are, by its own teaching, fallible and sinful even when trying to do good.
If there is a worst-case scenario in Europe today and totalitarianism does spread, could you see members of today’s European clergy (Catholic or Protestant) making the same sacrifices?
FBG: I would hope so. I think the Church invariably comes into its own as a place where hope can spread when the political situation seems hopeless. I suppose the Church is less powerful than it was then but the fundamental truth that it proclaims – that we owe primary allegiance to God Almighty – has not gone away and one would hope it would inspire now as it did then.
When the war ended, were most of the priests and nuns that you wrote about celebrated as heroes or did they simply return to a quiet life within the Church?
FBG: Well, it varied. The wonderful Canon Felix Kir became a real celebrity – Mayor of Dijon for another two decades and, of course, having the blanc de cassis named after him because he drank so much of it. Others went on to run charities or parishes or religious orders, but the reality is that over half of those I wrote about didn’t survive the war at all. They were perhaps the greatest heroes.
To confirm attendance for the July 12 talk by Fergus Butler Gallie, contact hughbearn@gmail.com. A €10 entry fee at the door on July 12 will be donated to charity, and refreshments will follow at St Paul’s House.
Chaplain Hugh adds, “Father Fergus will be preaching at St Paul’s at 10:30 am on July 14 – the seventh Sunday after Trinity which is also Bastille Day – how apposite.”
Rachel Burns remembers the exact moment she knew she wanted to be a pilot. “I was 8 years old, and I had seen a disaster movie about the plight of a 747.”
Rachel, who was a guest speaker at the Air League Monaco on June 21, was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, and describes herself as an energetic kid, playing netball, the piano and joining the Air Training Corps run by the Royal Air Force.
As a captain for British Airways, she is the first in her family to enter the aviation field. “There are scholarships out there that require zero flight experience, and you only need English and Maths at GCSE or brevet level to get into those courses. But higher educational qualifications help to make you stand out amongst the applicants for very few places.” Rachel graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Durham University and went to get her Airline Transport Pilots Licence (ATPL), which you need in order to become a commercial pilot.
The mother of two started working for BA in 1998 and has remained with the airline ever since. “In 1997, BA footed the cost for my cadetship. I spent around 18 months training before I joined the company. BA paid for my training, and I was bonded to the company for the first 5 years of employment.”
Rachel recalls her first passenger flight as surreal. “Everything is exactly the same as the simulator until you see the passengers. Then the terror sets in!”
She credits her most beautiful in-flight moment to the day she passed her command check. “At the end of the flight, the training captain gave me my captain’s stripes and told me to go and say goodbye to the passengers. Then he made an announcement to the passengers that they were saying goodbye and thank you to British Airways’ newest captain. After the huge amount of work and effort to achieve the rank, it was such a touching moment, and the passengers all congratulated me as they disembarked.”
Captain Rachel Burns with Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou at Air League Monaco event on June 21, 2024.
And with so many hours in her logbook, she is sympathetic to passengers who have a fear of flying. “It’s an unknown to many people. In a car you can see out of the windscreen the world ahead of you but in a plane, you see very little through the window so it’s hard to get that sense of what’s going on and it causes a feeling of loss of control and panic. It’s a shame people can’t come to the flight deck any more during the flight because in the days before 9/11 frightened passengers could come and see what’s actually going on and with was the full horizon rather than the partial view of either land or sky that you see through a window.
“We cured many a nervous flier back then. Also, you should think of turbulence as a potholed or cobbled street. The car bounces as it goes over it and may dip into a pothole but you’re still supported by the road. It’s the same in the air. The unsettled air causes bumps under the wings and that feels like the bumpy road.”
Over the years, her nerves of steel have served her well. Once she operated a flight from Heathrow to Denver with one of the air conditioning packs not working. Normally two packs working at a higher flow rate was equal to all three working in the basic mode. It was hot on the plane, and she expected it to cool once the engines were running and the aircraft airborne. It never cooled. “It was 29°C throughout the plane. The crew took off their ties and unbuttoned the tops of the shirts. I had to walk through the cabin to explain to people the situation. It was fantastic to see the turnaround in the passengers’ attitude when they spoke to the pilot. Initially they were largely angry and frustrated but by the end they were all having a fun bonding experience laughing about having cocktails and suggesting new crew uniforms including grass skirts or shorts. We landed in Denver and got off the plane to 30°C weather!”
Since the birth of her children, Rachel has worked 50% part time, taking work trips during a 14-day period then having 14 days off. She explains that a full-time roster will be around six 3- or 4-day trips or four to five longer trips. “When you’re on ‘home standby’ you need to be able to reach the airport within two hours. As I live abroad – outside of Nice – this means on home standby I have to be in a hotel near Heathrow. For short-haul crews there is also ‘airport standby’ where pilots have to wait at the airport to fill in for uncrewed flights immediately.”
By law, pilots can only be at the controls of an aircraft for a certain number of hours. “On long flights we have a spare pilot who takes over from one of the operating pilots to enable them to have a break. The break is taken in a bunk. On the 777 the flight crew (pilot) bunk is above the first few rows of seats. The cabin crew have bunks at the back of the plane in the roof above the last few rows of seats.”
According to the British Airways Gender Pay Gap Report 2023, the UK’s flag carrier has approximately 6.6% female pilots, which is above the national average of 5%. In 2023, the airline introduced the Speedbird Academy, a fully-funded pilot programme, to support our drive to improve representation in the pilot community. “When I joined in 1998, there were less than 50 females out of about 2,800 total pilots, which equates to just over 1%. As a women pilot, I do think I have to work harder and be better in order to be taken seriously although whether that is my perception or genuinely required is up for debate,” says Rachel.
“It is a male dominated environment but I have always been a bit of a tomboy, so I fit in anyway. I only ever once experienced offensive sexism at my time at BA. It was from a male captain who later lost his command due to incompetence. Karma is sweet!”
Rachel adds that the sexism she encountered came from outside the industry. “Before I became a pilot, people used to say it was an impossible job for me. At school or talking to people in general, there was a lot of opposition.”
And if she had listened to the naysayers? “I would have been a primary school teacher. I’m glad I never had to be though!”
Article first published June 23, 2024. Photos courtesy of Vanessa Ilsley.
MIMA Club president Vanina Aronica (right) with Carla and Martine Ackermann.
Monaco’s town hall is throwing a free concert for the Fête de la Musique in the gardens at Place des Moulins.
The MIMA Club, under the artistic direction of Vanina Aronica, has been invited to perform an outdoor concert from 5:30 to 7:30 pm on Friday, June 21. “To celebrate Music Day in Monaco, we will offer a mixed program of jazz, classical and French and international pop songs under the theme of Summer Time,” says Vanina, a professional opera singer.
Born in Paris, Vanina is a Franco-American who lives between the French Riviera and Beverly Hills. “I have been coming to Monaco since I was a kid as my parents had a house in Eze.”
Vanina has been belting out the tunes from a young age and later sang in Monaco with stars like Julian Lennon for the Rainforest Foundation and with Scorpions’ drummer Herman Rarebell, a resident at the time who founded Monaco Records, the country’s first label.
“I do this to help promote our young talent so they can get stage experience, singing also with professionals, and after good preparation,” says the Soprano, who covers the same repertoire as Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman.
“There will be many talented performers for the Summer Time concert, including the winners of The Golden Voices Music Awards with the Monaco team. Come join us.”
Article first published June 20, 2024.Photo courtesy of Martine Ackermann.
Did you know the Princess Grace Irish Library has a rare first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses? The copy is numbered 312 out of 1,000 printed on handmade paper dated February 2, 1922. It was published in Paris by the English-language bookshop Shakespeare and Company, owned by American ex-pat Sylvia Beach, who had met Joyce at a party in Paris.
The classic is set on a single day June 16, 1904, and, since 1954, a Bloomsday festival – named after the central character, Leopold Bloom – takes place on this day. Loyal fans dress up in Edwardian costumes and celebrate in the streets of the author’s native Dublin, as well as in cities worldwide.
“This is our fourth year to celebrate Bloomsday in Monaco with actors from the Monaco-Ireland Arts Society,” says library director Paula Farquharson. “What was born out of necessity, due to Covid restrictions, has morphed into an annual celebration of Ireland’s most famous writer. Although not one of Ireland’s four Nobel prize winners, Joyce has inspired and intrigued the literary scene and the greater public who embrace this day across the globe.”
The kick off is at 2:15 pm inside the library (first floor), where this year there’s a special display of James Joyce memorabilia, on loan from the private collection of Michael Flatley, award-winning dancer and producer of Riverdance and Lord of the Dance.
Around 2:45 pm Bloomsday revellers leave the library to stroll around Monaco-Ville just as the author’s fictional character, Bloom, did when he wandered Dublin city on June 16, 1904. First stop is beside the Prince’s Palace (by the tourist bus stop).
The literary event is free – just turn up wearing a hat. “We’re delighted to frolic about in Monaco-Ville with dramatic readings and the odd obscenity exclaimed from James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses,” enthuses Paula.
“We’re grateful to Prince Albert for allowing us to perform passages from the book on the Palace Square – we chose morally decent parts! Much to the delight of tourists who question, ‘What’s going on? Why the Irish flag?’”
The Princess Grace Irish Library at 9 rue Princesse Marie-de-Lorraine is free to visit. Open Monday to Thursday 9 am to 5 pm (last guided visit at 4:30 pm) and Friday 9 am to 4 pm (last guided visit 3:30 pm). Email for general enquiries and reservations.
Article first published June 14, 2024. Feature photo courtesy of the Princess Grace Irish Library.
The 10th edition of the fantastic Champagne & Oysters Cycling Club’s charity bike ride took place Sunday, May 5. The enthusiastic group departed from St Tropez at 8 am and cycled 140 km to arrive in Monaco at 4:20 pm, as some 70 riders pedalled down Rue Suffren Reymond to a cheering crowd outside of Slammers.
Princess Charlene arrived shortly after to join Eddie Jordan and Terry Torrison on stage with a long list of thanks to the 700 cyclists who have participated over the years, as well as sponsors and supporters.
WATCH VIDEO ABOVE: Princess Charlene joins Eddie Jordan and Terry Torrison on stage to thank the 2024 COCC cyclists and supporters.
Last year, the COCC bike ride raised over €70,000 for the Princess Charlene Foundation but, for the first time, funds raised this year will be shared between the Princess Charlene Foundation and the My Name’5 Doddy Foundation, which funds motor neurone disease research and helps patients and families living with this devastating disease. Donations can be made here: COCC – Princess Charlene Foundation – COCC – My Names’5 Doddie Foundation.
WATCH VIDEO ABOVE: St Tropez-Monaco cyclists arrive at Slammers.
The street party with a paid BBQ and Oyster Bar was going strong with live music from the Paul Dobie Band and Caligagan Band. Sponsors of this year’s ride: Plurimi, McLaren, Banque Havilland, Lyon Skin Care, Designing Centre, Relevance, Levmet, Moore, Brash, Far East Commodities, GeeTech, Knight Frank, St Tropez House, iCrew Services, inter-nett and Monaco Projects.
WATCH VIDEOS BELOW: interviews with cyclists John Brash, Rumble Romagnoli and Tessa.
Street party photos
SlammersAndrew Gallagher and Gareth Wittstock, Secretary General of the Princess Charlene Foundation.Eddie Jordan. Princess Charlene Foundation Ambassador Francesco Castellacci. Princess Charlene signs Francesco Castellacci’s bike.Zeynep Onder Castel-branco, Amanda Gallagher and Lisa DeRea Frederiksen.Mark Thomas and Gareth Wittstock, Secretary General of the Princess Charlene Foundation.
Article first published May 5, 2024.All photos and videos copyright Good News Monaco.
Jo Salter never set out to be a jet fighter pilot. Nor could she ever have imagined one day being named one of the 50 Most Inspiring Women in the World, and by two media outlets, the BBC and Harpers & Queen (now Harper’s Bazaar).
No siree. In 1981, 13-year-old Jo Salter wanted to be a hairdresser and hung out at her local salon in Croydon. Why would she dream of flying 25 tonnes of screaming metal at 800 miles an hour at the height of a tree when legally women were not allowed to fly in the military at the time?
Speaking to the Air League of Monaco on April 4 at the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation HQ, the British pilot said she never set out to become the first operational female Royal Air Force combat fighter pilot. It was her mom who encouraged her to study chemistry, physics and biology, and French “because it will buy you opportunity”.
Jo loved math and entertained the idea of becoming an accountant until the day a WISE (Women in Science and Education) Bus stopped by her school. One of the visitors told her,
“If you study accountancy, you can just be an account. If you study engineering, you can be whatever you want in the world.”
As Jo described it, “I went home and told mom I wanted to be whatever I could in the world. She said I needed to find sponsorship.”
Guest speaker Jo Salter with Monaco Air League president Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou on April 4, 2024.
Jo did not come from a military background but that year was the first time the Royal Air Force (RAF) was offering scholarships to women, and it was worth more than the others she applied for. At 18 she joined the RAF and embarked on a 3-year Electronic Systems Engineering degree.
“The year I graduated in 1989 was the first year the British government allowed women to fly in the military but not fast jets,” she stated. Was that the moment she chose to become a pilot? She laughs and says she chose to do the required aptitude tests because “they were close to where my mom lived.” As a result, she was relaxed for the tests, and having fenced from the age of seven, she had highly developed hand-eye coordination and scored well.
21-year-old Jo, who is 163 cm (5’ 3”) tall, was offered the chance to become a pilot. She started in a De Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk – a 2-seat, single engine primary trainer aircraft. “People said I was too short but airplanes have been designed around men not human beings. In the Chipmunk, I sat on a few cushions.” And it was love at first flight. “That first flight I fell in love with the peace I get up high up above the earth.”
After 66 hours and 5 minutes controlling the Chipmunk, she moved on to the side-by-side trainer aircraft, the Jet Provost (JP5) with injection seat. She waited in line to practice the manoeuvre on a rig but when her turn arrived, she was told she couldn’t go on it. “We don’t know what might happen to you,” she was told. “You do realise your womb might pop up.”
Jo recalled, “When you are trying to be similar, you end up being set apart when they don’t allow you to do what all the guys are doing.”
Half way through the year, the RAF trainees are streamlined into fast jet, multi-engine or rotary (helicopter) flying training. If Jo had been a man, she would have been a fighter pilot with her scores but instead she was pointed toward multi-engine. Her flight commander stepped and challenged the decision. “What if I covered her face? Where would you send a pilot with these scores?” The response from the decision makers was: “Okay, as long as she promises not to make any trouble.”
Her fighter pilot training is in the Hawk T2 – “a transonic, 2-seat training aircraft used by the RAF to train pilots to fly fast jet combat aircraft.” Her first flight was at 420 knots low level (below 500 feet) around Wales but she also remembers flying at 45,000 feet. “I saw the curvature of the earth for the first time and it was most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
By the time Jo’s pilot training comes to an end in 1993, the Royal Navy had allowed women on ships. This again changed the law for women’s rights in the military and she can now go on to be a fast jet pilot flying the Tornado Panavia. (At that point she was one of only five women fighter pilots in the world). “Flying is easy – you go left, right, up, down and forward. But a fast jet pilot is all about capacity to think and situational awareness. It is the only thing harder than being an F1 driver.”
Flight Lieutenant Salter is posted to Squadron 617, “The Dambusters,” (known for their precision bombing of German dams during the Second World War). Seven out of eight squadrons said no when asked if the would take a woman. No. 617 asked, “Is she a good pilot?”
“I was 24 years old, and nervous. When I arrived, a senior navigator meets me to say, ‘Jo you are not welcome here and we are going to get rid of you.’ He enabled me to do the job.”
As part of crew cooperation, the co-pilots are taught to do have a capture conversation about what they’d do if they get shot down. The senior navigator informed Jo, “Whichever way you go, I will be going the opposite direction.”
As Jo described, “Why are you saying that? What was it about the dynamic that wasn’t working. I needed to be the best crew that we could be while we were making decisions together. You’ve got burning jet crashing down beside you, you have a parachute landing in hostiles … You are not going to leave the only person you know.”
Jo found the only way she could connect with him was to offer to caddy for him during a golf game, which he readily accepted. She admits this is not something she would do today.
You can become a member of the Air League of Monaco for an annual fee of €150. Founded in November 2013 with a mission to promote “air-mindedness in the young”, today the Monaco charity counts 230 members including 135 junior members.
“There are difficulties being the first in anything. You feel like you are being watched all the time.” Jo cited the expression, “There are old pilots, bold pilots but not old bold pilots.” And admits that she, like all fighter pilots with heathy egos, became over-confident at times and made mistakes. But she always took responsibility.
Jo completed several NATO exercises in a “no-fly zone” over Iraq and went on to become an Honorary Group Captain training thousands of air cadets. “I believe in service and for 12 years have been flying air cadets,” said the author of two books, Energy – 52 ways to fire up your life and Become an Energy Angel”and Energize: Spring Clean Your Mind And Body To Get Your Bounce Back Today And Every Day.
After leaving the military, Jo went to become “an advocate for women in the military, inspiring female pilots around the world to continue to obliterate glass ceilings.” But it has only been in the last seven years or so that the RAF has truly embraced her as a spokesperson. She is now a sought-after public speaker and Director of Global Transformative Leadership at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
She met Queen Elizabeth in October 2018 when she showed Her Majesty, who was Patron of the Royal Air Force Club, a new stained-glass window commemorating the role of women in the RAF. Jo was awarded an MBE for services to aviation in the 2022 New Year Honours, the final New Year’s Honours appointed by the Queen.
In June of that same year, she met Tom Cruise on the red carpet for the premier of Top Gun: Maverick in London’s West End. “Tom Cruise asked to meet me,” Jo told me. “We discussed G-force and flying. He then spent the day at the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford and I hosted him for the day.” (While Jo has flown 7-G, Tom has flown 9-G, the highest the human body is able to withstand.) By the way, Jo’s pet peeve is watching movies with fast jet pilots when their oxygen masks are hanging down and they are speaking. “Just crazy!”
Looking back to those early years of training, Jo Salter emphasised that there were good people in the RAF. “I was told it must have been my sense of humour but they didn’t see me go to the officer’s mess and calling my mom up and crying my heart out saying, ‘It doesn’t matter that I am a good pilot, they are not ready for me to do that.’
“But they are now,” she smiled.
The latest UK Armed Forces Biannual Diversity Statistics reports women make up 11.7% of UK Regular Forces and are best represented in the RAF, where they make up 15% of regular personnel. A 2021 study by the International Society of Women Airline Pilots revealed less than 6% of pilots worldwide are women. In France, according to the Association of Female Pilots the proportion of licensed female aviators is 10%.
