She is a granddaughter, great-niece and niece of the King, but Irene Urdangarin de Borbón is only Most Excellent Lady, the only title that corresponds to the grandchildren of King Juan Carlos who are not in the direct line of succession.
The youngest daughter of Iñaki Urdangarin and the Infanta Cristina turns 18 today, a date that may also be the one that facilitates the signing of the divorce of her parents, since there are no minor children, the agreement between the spouses, including the economic one, it does not have to go through the courts, which is what the protagonists want. A discreet divorce that facilitates a new framework in family relationships, once the shock over the appearance of the photos that testified to Iñaki's affair with his co-worker, Ainhoa Armentia, had been overcome.
The Urdangarin-Borbons intend to celebrate together, next week in Geneva, the coming of age of their youngest daughter and her graduation as a bachelor.
Irene Urdangarin de Borbón came into the world after her three male brothers. On June 5, 2005, at the Teknon Clinic, where Juan (1999); Pablo (2000) and Miguel (2002), Infanta Cristina gave birth to a girl who was baptized with the same name as Princess Irene of Greece, sister of Queen Sofía.
It is not a trivial detail, the election not only implied a gesture to which all her nephews call Aunt Pecu (because of how peculiar she is), it also made it clear that both the Infanta Elena and the Infanta Cristina had ceded their brother, Felipe, the option of baptizing a future daughter with the name of Sofía. Letizia, then Princess of Asturias, was pregnant with whom, on the following October 31, she would be born to become first Infanta and now Princess Leonor. Queen Sofia had to wait for a second daughter from Felipe and Letizia so that her fourth granddaughter would inherit her name.
Irene is the most unknown of the family, because she was only four years old when her parents were forced to move from Barcelona to Washington, to keep Iñaki away from the entanglements of the Nóos Institute. The then Dukes of Palma and their children went to live in the Bethesda neighborhood, on the outskirts of Mexico City, with the excuse of a new job for Urdangarin at Telefónica.
Life was never the same again for the Urdangarin-Borbón family. In August 2012, the Dukes of Palma returned to Barcelona, after spending three years in the United States, so that Iñaki Urdangarin could prepare his defense to face the legal process, which five years later would land him in jail.
Both in Barcelona and in Washington, Irene and her siblings studied at the French Lyceum, but while Juan, Pablo and Miguel kept friends from their time in Barcelona, with whom they still see each other, Irene has barely lived in Barcelona. She has lived in Geneva for the last ten years, where they moved in 2013. Since July 2017, when Iñaki Urdangarin entered prison and after her brothers left, Irene lives alone with her mother in Switzerland.
He has studied at Ecolint, an international school, and now wants to continue in Switzerland, specifically at the prestigious Hotel School in Lausanne, in the management field.
Irene Urdangarin, like her siblings, is a discreet young woman; Like her mother, her brothers, her aunt Elena and her cousins Marichalar, she maintains a long-distance relationship with the Kings and her daughters, Leonor and Sofía. The last time she was seen in public was at the funeral of her great-uncle Constantine of Greece, where it could be seen that she is a stylish young woman and similar to her father.
Iñaki Urdangarin's time in prison has not been easy for his children, but the appearance of Ainhoa Armentia, with whom Urdangarin has had a loving relationship for more than a year, was a blow to the brothers who hoped that, once they his father served his sentence, they could return to live as a family. Given that both Iñaki and Cristina want their breakup not to affect their relationship with their children, Irene and her brothers have accepted a situation that, with their youngest daughter coming of age, due to the legal obstacles she avoids, may mean the imminent marriage divorce.
