b'MONACOProfessor Thomas BartlettProfessor Thomas Bartlett MRIA was Writer in Residence at the Princess Grace Irish Library in October, 2019 He is the author of Ireland: a history (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and most recently general editor of the four-volume Cambridge History of Ireland (Cambridge University Press, 2018)A month in Monacoat the renowned Princess GraceA final stand-out occasion for me was a champagne reception, accom-Irish Library! What could be more exciting! The library holds exten- panied by a television documentary featuring Princess Grace, not seen sive collections of modern Irish literature and history, with many beingsince the 1960s, and now screened to mark the ninetieth anniversary first editions, some from the late Princess Graces own collection, andof her birth. all freely accessible to the reader or researcher. There are also someIf I conclude by saying that Judith (administrator) and Graldine manuscript collectionsI was particularly interested in the McCarthy(administrative assistant) at the Princess Grace Irish Library did ev-papersand, of course, there is a huge repository of items relatingerything in their power to make my stay at the library both productive to Princess Grace (ne Kelly)photographs, newspapers, magazines,and rewarding, it will be evident that I will retain a great affection for and film. It struck me that Princess Graces visit to Ireland in the earlythe icy blonde as Alfred Hitchcock dubbed Grace Kelly, and for the 1960s (fully documented here) is worth a study in its own right: shelibrary that bears her name.received a rapturous reception there and her visit (a Homecoming) preceded the much better known one by President John F. Kennedy. My work in the library focussed primarily on the Irish militaryin France in the eighteenth century, known colloquially as the Wild Geese, or in French Les Oies Sauvages. To that end I was facilitated in putting together a synthesis of recent work on these soldiers (ori-gins, numbers, motivations, experiences in war and in peace, and re-ception by their French hosts). I was able to incorporate recent work by the young French historian Pierre Louis Coudray into the resulting talk which I delivered to the Friends of the Princess Grace Library (25 October 2019). As well, I was able to make use of the McCar-thy family papers which trace the history of an Irish officer in French service in the 1780s and which shed light on his familys later pere-grinationshis son was an accomplished cartographer in Algeria in thenineteenth century and other members of the family fetched up in Venezuela and New York. Fascinating stuff! In between researching Irish soldiers abroad, I was able to renew acquaintances with various authors that for various reasons I had neglected over the past decades. Louis MacNeices poetry was something of a (renewed) revelation to me, as were the prose works of C. Day Lewis, both of which were conveniently housed at eye-level from my desk, and hence a welcome and easy distraction from my historical researches. And of course, the library is housed just yards from the royal palace with breath-taking views over Monaco, and with any number of cafes and restaurants in close proximity. In addition to my lecture to the Friends, I was also privileged to speak with a class from Lyce Albert I (local High School) who were studying English: this was rewarding (and not a little nerve-wreckingone question was: why is the prefix O really only found in surnames in Ireland but not in Scotland?) connect 2020109'