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Grace Kelly Film Festival

OUR EXPERIENCE WHILE ON SET

It was an amazing experience going to Ireland and learning more about my family heritage. My sister Catie, who has her own television series 24/7 City Secrets, and I wanted to capture the beautiful country of our ancestors in both of our TV shows. We flew into Dublin and made a trip to County Mayo where they are from. Everyone in our extended family welcomed us with open arms and went out of their way to make us feel  at home. We even took a special tour of Grace Kelly’s homestead and reaffirmed that the famous Hollywood actress and Princess of Monaco is our third cousin.  Princess Grace’s grandfather and our great-great-great-grandfather were brothers and their homes were only a short distance apart.  The town of Newport holds the Grace Kelly Film Festival in Grace Kelly’s honor each year and you might want to base your visit to the area around that same time!

OUR ADDITIONAL TIP

While we were in Dublin, my sister Catie and I also had the honor of meeting Enda Kenny, the Taoiseach of Ireland.  He welcomed us and graciously answered questions about his beautiful country and about his role as Prime Minister.  We were presented with Certificates of Irish Heritage by Niall Gibbons, the Chief Executive of Tourism Ireland and an article was written up in MayoToday as well as in a post from Tourism Ireland.  If you want to get a certificate of Irish Heritage for yourself or a family member, click here for more information.

 

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