Join EPIC as it explores the life and times of the legendary Trinidadian-born singing sensation, Mona Baptiste.
Her biographers, Bill Hern and David Gleave, will tell the fascinating life story of the singer who first came to England on the famous Empire Windrush in 1948.
Baptiste, whose musical genres were Calypso and Blues, had a successful international singing career and appeared in several films.
Within two weeks of arriving in England, she was featured on BBC radio and was soon singing with the bands of Ted Heath and Cab Kaye and as part of the Stephane Grappelli Quintet.
French star Yves Montand invited her to appear in Paris and her fame quickly spread across the continent. Her greatest success would come in Germany in the 1950s and 1960s when she was one of the highest-paid entertainers in that country.
While in London, she met and married Liam Morrison and returned with him to his native Ireland in 1972. Her life and career took her all over the world but it would be Ireland, and Dublin in particular, that she would eventually call home.
Mona Baptiste currently features in the “Revolutionary Routes: Ireland and the Black Atlantic” exhibition at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum.