<\/p>\n
Princess Irene of Greece and Denmark has died at the age of
\n83.<\/p>\n
Princess Irene passed away peacefully at her home in Madrid with
\nher sister, Queen Sofia of Spain, at her side.<\/p>\n
The princess had been ill for some time and her condition had
\ndeteriorated in the past few weeks.<\/p>\n
Her death was announced by her nephew, King Felipe VI of Spain,
\nin a brief statement.<\/p>\n
It said \u201dTheir Majesties the King and Queen and Her Majesty
\nQueen Sofia are saddened to announce the death of Her Royal
\nHighness Princess Irene of Greece at 11.40 this morning at the
\nZarzuela Palace in Madrid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Queen Sofia and her sister had lived together at the palace for
\nseveral years and Spain had been Irene\u2019s home since the 1980s.<\/p>\n
She was close to all her family and was often seen with her
\nnephew and nieces as well as their children. Sofia\u2019s younger
\ndaughter, Infanta Cristina, named her only daughter Irene in honour
\nof her aunt.<\/p>\n
Princess Irene of Greece and Denmark was born on May 11 1942 in
\nCape Town in South Africa where her parents were living after being
\nforced to flee Greece with other members of the royal family after
\nthe Nazi invasion.<\/p>\n
She was the youngest child of Paul and Federica who became King
\nand Queen of the Hellenes in 1947. Irene spent much of her
\nchildhood in Greece and also attended school in Germany.<\/p>\n
Irene grew up alongside her older sister, Sofie, and their
\nbrother, Constantine, who had become Crown Prince of Greece on
\ntheir father\u2019s accession to the throne.<\/p>\n
King Paul would prove a popular monarch although Greece was
\ngoing through political difficulties for much of his time on the
\nthrone.<\/p>\n
In 1962, Irene was a bridesmaid at the wedding of her sister to
\nJuan Carlos of Spain and the newly renamed Sofia relied on her
\nsibling for support as she had her own family. Constantine married
\nAnne-Marie of Denmark in 1964, soon after his own succession to the
\nGreek throne. Irene didn\u2019t marry \u2013 she was briefly linked to Prince
\nMichael of Orleans in the 1960s.<\/p>\n
Following the death of King Paul, Princess Irene also became a
\ngreat support to her mother, Queen Frederica, and the two lived for
\na while in India.<\/p>\n
Queen Frederica\u2019s death, in 1981, was followed by a move to
\nMadrid for Irene and she lived for most of the following 45 years
\nat the Zarzuela Palace, the family home of the Spanish royals.<\/p>\n
She was very close to her sister, Sofia, who doted on her and
\nthe two were often seen together, especially during the Spanish
\nroyal holidays on the island of Mallorca.<\/p>\n
In recent years, Irene had suffered cognitive issues and her
\nhealth had begun to fail. She was last seen at a public event in
\n2025 when she attended the wedding of her nephew, Prince Nikolaos
\nof Greece, to Chrysi Vardinogianni.<\/p>\n
Even though she had given up her Greek citizenship, having spent
\njust a few decades of her life in the country, it was perhaps a
\nfitting final appearance for a Princess of Greece who found her
\nlife dominated by change, exile and turmoil.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source royalcentral.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Princess Irene of Greece and Denmark has died at the age of 83. Princess Irene passed away peacefully at her home in Madrid with her sister, Queen Sofia of Spain, at her side. The princess had been ill for some time and her condition had deteriorated in the past few weeks. Her death was announced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2236460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2236459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Princess-Irene-of-Greece-sister-of-Queen-Sofia-has-died.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2236459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2236461,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236459\/revisions\/2236461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2236460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2236459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2236459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2236459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}