Bibliofemme News
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01/06/2005
Air-crash survivors attend Dublin launch
Survivors of a plane crash in the Wicklow mountains that happened nearly sixty years ago, will attend the launch of a new book tonight.
Suzanne Barnes' book When Our Plane Hit the Mountain, documents the sensational events of August 12th 1946, when twenty-one excited French Girl Guides arrive at Le
Bourget Airport in Paris en route to a holiday camp in Ireland. Laughing and giggling in the early morning sun, they board an aircraft bound for Dublin. Later that day, in one of the worst storms of the year, their plane goes down in the Dublin mountains.
Author Suzanne Barnes has tracked down the witnesses to this astonishing
event, meeting former Irish Guides who were at the holiday camp in 1946,
talking to rescuers, doctors and locals. Travelling to Paris, Lille, Le
Havre and Nantes, she met the survivors, and heard their tales of adventure.
Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government Dick Roche T.D.
will join survivors Micheline Huré, Lilette Lemoine, Catherine Bertier,
Agnés Vallin, rescuers Pa Brennan and Paul Rowan, International Girl Guides
Chief Commissioner Jillian van Turnhout, and Patrick Thomas, Cultural
attache at the French Embassy, to celebrate the launch of When Our Plane Hit
the Mountain.
For more information Joseph Hoban, New Island, joseph.hoban@newisland.ie
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