Late monarch’s skilful statecraft created a lasting legacy of reconciliation and drew a line under the pain of the Troubles
The duty of welcoming the first British monarch to visit an independent Ireland – and the first in Dublin for more than 100 years – fell to one man.
As Eamon Gilmore waited outside for the RAF plane that had flown Queen Elizabeth II to Baldonnel Airport, he knew he was taking part in history.
But the late Queen’s state visit to Ireland in May 2011 was to surpass everyone’s expectations.
“I remember when the door of the plane opened and she appeared at the top of the steps,” recalled the former deputy prime minister of Ireland, or tánaiste.
“She was dressed in green. We hadn’t expected that. It was obviously a big statement,” Mr Gilmore told The Telegraph after the late Queen’s death on Thursday.
“She’d got this big beaming smile. My recollection is how excited she was and how really happy she was to be in Ireland. I felt like I was in the presence of somebody who was starting an adventure.”
The late monarch had just four days to draw a line under centuries of division and the painful years of the Troubles.
After she died, flags outside government buildings in Dublin were lowered to half mast, flowers were left outside the British embassy and many recalled her historic visit to Ireland.
“That visit will always be remembered for all the right reasons,” said Damien Gleeson, 51, a taxi driver.
Micheal Martin, the taoiseach, and Michael D Higgins, the president, went to the embassy to sign one of two books of condolence. A “steady stream” of well-wishers did the same.
Cards left on the bouquets outside called her a “legend” and “inspiration”.
Even Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the IRA – which had boycotted the visit – praised her “significant contribution and determined efforts to advancing peace and reconciliation”.
Such reverence for a British sovereign would have been unthinkable before the late Queen’s visit.
In 2011, Queen Elizabeth II had more surprises up her sleeve than a striking green outfit, one of several specially designed for a visit that would be rich in symbolism and emotion.
At a banquet in Dublin Castle, the former seat of British rule, she began her speech in Irish, saying: “A Uachtarain agus a chairde,” meaning president and friends.
"Wow," mouthed Mary McAleese, Ireland’s former president and the host of the dinner, before the room erupted in warm applause.
Mrs McAleese had written the words out phonetically on an envelope, which was passed to the monarch by a diplomat.
It has since emerged that Queen Elizabeth II ignored advice not to speak Irish for fear the visit could be overshadowed if she mispronounced them.
“Her pronunciation was perfect,” said Mr Gilmore of an evening that began with protests outside.
But it was the late Queen’s statement, almost an apology, that “with the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all" that impressed him the most.
Those who played their part in arranging the politically sensitive visit, the result of years of painstaking diplomacy and a gradual thawing in relations, admitted to nerves at its start.
Ireland undertook its biggest ever security operation for the visit to protect the Queen, who may have had her own fears. Lord Mountbatten, her second cousin and the late Duke of Edinburgh’s maternal uncle, was murdered by the IRA in 1979.
Queen Elizabeth II was scheduled to visit sites of huge significance for Irish nationalism. For some, the wounds of Empire and the Troubles remained raw, despite the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
She laid a wreath in Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance, which is dedicated to "all those who gave their lives in the cause of Irish freedom". After doing so, she bowed her head in a gesture of respect
Later, the monarch and Irish president laid wreaths at the war memorial at Islandbridge in memory of Irish soldiers who were killed fighting in British uniform in the First and Second World Wards. Since then, these men, once ignored or even seen as traitors, have been commemorated in Ireland.
“That act of reconciliation, of mutual reconciliation, was absolutely unique in Irish history,” said Bobby McDonagh, who was present in his role as Ireland’s ambassador to the UK.
“There was nothing more that needed to be said or done in terms of British reconciliation. It’s a lasting legacy.”
Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh also visited Croke Park, the home of the Gaelic Athletic Association – where, in 1920, British forces killed 14 people.
Christy Cooney, president of the association, told the late Queen what had happened on Bloody Sunday.
“She nodded and showed great respect to what I was saying to her,” he said. “I found her a very gracious, and a very honourable and decent person.”
Mr Cooney gave a hurling stick to the Duke and suggested he practise in his back garden. “He said: ‘Ah yes, my 300 acre back garden,’” recalled Mr Cooney.
By the time the late Queen arrived in Cork, which is known as the “rebel city”, the Irish people had taken her to their hearts and greeted her in their thousands.
“It was like watching the grass grow,” said Feargal Purcell, then government press secretary, “It happened in real time.”
With Anglo-Irish relations strained over Brexit and Northern Ireland, it was a good time to remember the "deep and wide" legacy of the late Queen’s visit, he said.
While touring Cork’s English market, the late Queen befriended Pat O’Connell, a fishmonger, who later received an invitation to Buckingham Palace. The two stayed in touch by letter, with the Royal last writing to him a month ago.
“Her presence and her words did so much to cement a culture of reconciliation and partnership between these islands,” said Mrs McAleese after the monarch’s death.
"A Sinn Fein councillor broke the boycott and shook her hand", said Paddy Smyth, then a journalist on the Irish Times. "After the visit, Sinn Fein basically acknowledged the boycott had been a mistake."
Sir Julian King was the UK’s ambassador to Ireland. He said: “My most striking memory was the transition from the slightly tense start with police lining deserted streets to the joyous scenes just four days later in Cork."
“They were four days that changed how the two countries saw each other,” he said.
A year later, the monarch was to astonish the world again by shaking the hand of Martin McGuinness, the former IRA leader, in Belfast.
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