Princess Grace warned away from northside

ORGANISERS of the 1973 visit by Princess Grace of Monaco to Ireland feared her stay in Dublin could be disrupted by bomb scares if her accommodation was on the city’s northside.

The princess came to Ireland in June at the invitation of Eoin McKiernan, president of the Irish American Cultural Institute, of which she was international chairwoman, and which was holding a board of directors meeting in Dublin on the 28th.

Conscious of the popularity of the princess in her ancestral homeland, Mr McKiernan wrote to inform the Department of Foreign Affairs of her visit and it quickly took on a diplomatic occasion, with Foreign Minister Garrett FitzGerald offering a luncheon in her honour and new President Erskine Childers laying on a dinner at Áras an Uachtaráin, even though he was only taking up residency there three days earlier.