Monaco-Ireland Arts Society

Promoting Irish Literature and the Arts in Monaco

EVENTS

13 MARCH 2024 : A TALK BY AUTHOR FLOR MACCARTHY

The Presidents' Letters

On 13 March, the Princess Grace Irish Library will be hosting a talk by author, Flor MacCarthy, and MIAS will be reading some of the letters from the Irish Presidents on important matters.

Flor MacCarthy is a journalist and author whose non-fiction bestseller, The Presidents’ Letters (New Island Books) was shortlisted for Best Irish-Published Book 2021.  She is a presenter of current affairs programmes on Ireland’s parliament television channel (Oireachtas TV), and is a former senior news journalist and anchor with Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTÉ.  Flor graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a degree in French and Art History, which led unexpectedly to her career in journalism.

March 13th SOLD OUT! Second date to be announced shortly!

RSVP  +33 (6) 82 40 55 34​

10 NOVEMBER 2023 : THE LAST BURNING

Poster for The Last Burning Nov 2023

In 19th Century Ireland, old forklore and superstitions clashed with modern views.

The tragic story of the 1895 “fairy trial” of Bridget Cleary, a country seamstress, shocked the nation and the world.

MIAS will be performed two extracts from the play, The Last Burning – the martydrom of Bridget Cleary 1895 on 10 November at The Auditorium du Collège Charles III, Avenue de l’Annonciade, Monte-Carlo.

Presenter, Gay Byrne talking with Joe Ambrose and Eamon Carr on The Late Late Show, broadcasted on 17 December 1983.

16 JUNE 2023 : BLOOMSDAY IN MONACO

MIAS celebrated its third year of “Bloomsday in Monaco” with the Princess Grace Irish Library on 16 June.  Thanks to everyone, this has become an annual event.

The MIAS actors did their traditional stroll around the Rock in Monaco, spreading Joyce’s masterful words from Ulysses with a fusion of drama and music.

MIAS Dermot Bolger reading

Photo Courtesy of PGIL

10 MAY 2023 : A LECTURE BY FORMER DIPLOMAT DANIEL MULHALL

Daneil Mulhall gave a lecture on the theme ‘Around the Work with W B Yeats and James Joyce: a  Diplomatic Odyssey‘ held at the  Princess Grace Irish Library on 10 May, with our actors animating the lecture with dramatic readings of works by Yeats and Joyce.

Daniel looked back over his 44 years in Ireland’s diplomatic service and reflect on his experience of telling Ireland’s story through the works of W B Yeats and James Joyce.

MIAS Dermot Bolger reading

Photo Courtesy of PGIL

14 OCTOBER 2022 : AN EVENING WITH DERMOT BOLGER, PLAYWRIGHT & POET

Continuing with celebrating the centenary of the publication of ‘Ulyssess‘ in 1922, the Princess Grace Irish Library hosted a talk given by Dermot Bolger, with dramatic readings by our actors from Bolger’s play adaptation of Ulysses by James Joyce.

The writer explained, with humour, how his initial terror at approaching Ulysses as a playwright, reflects the terror of many readers due to its mystique and complexity.  He takes as his starting point, a complaint by Nora Barnacle (Joyce’s wife) that he kept her awake at night, laughing as he wrote.

MIAS Dermot Bolger reading

Nick O’Conor & Miranda Dawe
Photo: Manuel Vitali

28 APRIL 2022 : AN EVENING WITH AUTHOR NUALA O’CONNOR AT THE PRINCESS GRACE IRISH LIBRARY

Nuala O'Connor, author

To help celebrate the centenary of the publication of ‘Ulyssess‘ in 1922, the Princess Grace Irish Library hosted a lecture given by Nuala O’Connor.  Nuala spoke about what inspired her to write her new book, Nora, and the meticulous research undertaken. This bio-fictional novel takes the facts around the lives of Nora and James Joyce, and re-imagines them as a fictional story.

The talk was illustrated by dramatic readings of personal letters, between Nora and Joyce, by our MIAS actors.

25 MARCH 2022 : EUGENE O’NEILL

On 25 March, 2022, MIAS performed extracts from A Moon for the Misbegotten, The Iceman Cometh and Ile (a one act play) by Eugene O’Neill, at The Auditorium du Collège Charles III, Avenue de l’Annonciade, Monaco, and we were very honoured H.S.H Prince Albert of Monaco was able to attend.

A Moon for the Misbegotten : Set in a dilapidated Connecticut house in early September 1923, the play focuses on three characters:

Josie, a domineering Irish woman with a quick tongue and a ruined reputation, her conniving father, tenant farmer Phil Hogan, and James Tyrone Jr, Hogan’s landlord and drinking companion, a cynical alcoholic haunted by the death of his mother.

The Iceman Cometh : Set in New York in 1912 in Harry Hope’s downmarket Greenwich Village saloon and rooming house. As the play opens, the regulars are expecting Hickey to arrive in time for Harry’s birthday party. The first act introduces the various characters as they bicker among themselves, showing how drunk and delusional they are, all the while awaiting Hickey.

Ile : The one act play  is set about Captain David Keeney, a man obsessed with finding oil, and his wife, who joins him on his ship for what ends up being a two-year voyage in the middle of the ocean that tests the limits of everyone on board. The crew is determined to track down whales to find “ile” (oil), but instead end up barged in ice for months, and the dejection is palpable from the beginning of the first scene.

For more information, please call +33 682 40 55 34

2022 THE ULYSSES YEAR

This is the Ulysses year – the 100th anniversary of its publication by Sylvia Beach of Shakespeare and Co, in Paris, after it had been banned and burnt in the UK and the USA.

On 17 January at the Princess Grace Irish Library, Lynn Sharpe did a reading from Sylvia Beach’s reminiscences of her first meeting with James Joyce at her bookshop.

Sylvia Beach was an American-born bookseller and publisher who lived most of her life in Paris. She is known for her Paris bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, where she published James Joyce’s controversial book, Ulysses (1922).

EUROPEAN HERITAGE DAY AT THE PRINCESS GRACE IRISH LIBRARY 2021

European Heritage Day 2021

On 26 September, MIAS contributed a small reading of texts for the Matrimoine Culturel (Women’s influence in Ireland) at the Princess Grace Irish Library.  MIAS  performed extracts from descriptions of famous Irish women as well as some poems by modern women.  For example: Contess Markievicz and Easter 1916; Maud Gonne, the muse of early Yeats’ poems; Lady Wilde, Lady Gregory. Two amusing letters from women on ‘The Battle of the Short Skirt’ (1939) and ‘On the Contraceptive Train’ (1971). Modern poetry by women, Evan Boland, Maire Mc Entee. Spicy pieces from Merryman’s ‘The Midnight Court’ and ‘The Battle of the Bogside’ by Bernadette Devlin.

This was the first year for ‘Journée du Matrimoine‘ (dedicated to ‘Women and Patrimony’) to mark the 26th year of celebrating the annual Journées Européennes du Patrimoine.

For further details, click here.

CELEBRATE BLOOMSDAY 2021

We are delighted to announce the First “Bloomsday in Monaco” with the Princess Grace Irish Library and MIAS was on 16 June.  We performed along with two pupils from the International School of Monaco, accompanied by music on the bodhrán, and wandered around The Rock, as Leopold Bloom strolled the streets of Dublin.

For those of you who couldn’t be with us this year, why not plan to support us next year for the Bloomsday Centenary.

ST PATRICK’S DAY AT THE PRINCESS GRACE IRISH LIBRARY

MIAS was invited by the Princess Grace Irish Library to provide a short performance on St Patrick’s Day this year, together with a musical interlude by the Academie de Musique, which was filmed.

MIAS performing for Prince Albert

Photo courtesy of the Princess Grace Irish Library

We were very honoured to give a command performance for H.S.H Prince Albert of Monaco.

Culture Snippets

 

Eugene O' Neill

Eugene Gladstone O’Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature.  He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O’Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of her third son, Eugene. O’Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked.

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2 Avenue Princesse Grace
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