{"id":287128,"date":"2026-01-16T07:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T07:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/287128\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T07:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T07:05:11","slug":"remembering-princess-irene-of-greece-the-concert-pianist-princess-who-grew-up-in-exile-and-donated-her-fortune-to-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/287128\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Princess Irene of Greece: the concert pianist Princess who grew up in exile and donated her fortune to charity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Growing up away from her home country, including a portion of her childhood spent in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tatler.com\/topic\/egypt\" isautogenerated=\"true\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Egypt<\/a>, her early years were marked by displacement, but, as she recalled to Eva Celada in her book, Irene of Greece: The Rebel Princess, it was also a time of great personal experience. A virtuosic pianist, she studied under Gina Bachauer, dubbed the \u2018Queen of Pianists\u2019, and played many concerts herself, including one at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tatler.com\/topic\/london-uk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">London<\/a>&#8216;s Royal Festival Hall.<\/p>\n<p>Princess Irene also had a great passion for archaeology, which she shared with her sister. The pair joined eachother on excavations in the ancient village of Decelea, penning a series of books about their discoveries. The site is very near to the Royal Palace of Tatoi, which is where Irene\u2019s parents and her brother, King Constantine, are buried.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Princess Irene of Greece playing the piano during rehearsals for her debut at Royal Festival Hall in London 1969\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ResponsiveImageContainer-eNxvmU cfBbTk responsive-image__image\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Irene_110523_GettyImages-562651407.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Princess Irene of Greece playing the piano during rehearsals for her debut at Royal Festival Hall in London, 1969<\/p>\n<p>Central Press\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Irene\u2019s life changed in 1964, when her father, King Paul, died, making Constantine the King of Greece. In the period between Paul\u2019s death and the birth of Constantine\u2019s first son, Irene was known as the \u2018Crown Princess of Greece\u2019. Neither she nor Constantine\u2019s son would ever hold the throne, however, as the Greek monarchy was overthrown in 1973, leaving the royal family in exile once more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Growing up away from her home country, including a portion of her childhood spent in Egypt, her early&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,3617,19,17,5,8505],"class_list":{"0":"post-287128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-features","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115903510848130080","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}