The one thing this visit has highlighted is the impossibility of escaping history in Ireland, writes KATHY SHERIDAN
THE DAY ended with a glittering banquet in the majestic St Patrick’s Hall with the Queen wearing an actual fairytale crown, with a necklace and an Irish harp diamond brooch – not to mention addressing her Irish audience as Gaeilge.
“A Uachtaráin agus a chairde . . . , ” she said, getting a round of applause for having a go. And before that, dilemmas for the endless procession of common folk. To bow or not to bow? Perhaps to curtsey?
Do you have to shake hands with allof them?
How much small talk before the perpetually smiling, 85-year-old Queen makes a perfectly reasonable little hand movement moving you along? How long before the 90-year-old Duke bares his teeth or that fantastically risky line in humour?
The opportunity to appraise a line-up of Irish dignitaries, poets, sports stars, politicians, civil servants, business people and spouses in evening dress is rare entertainment – didn’t the President look rather regal herself? Didn’t Amy Huberman look fab? Wasn’t it good to see the green-clad Iris Robinson out and about again?
But ultimately, it was a serious showcase within which the Queen’s formal voice would be heard for the first time in the Republic. The horses weren’t frightened, of course. There was no apology. But her reference to painful personal hurts undoubtedly cut both ways. And the line about “being able to bow to the past but not be bound by it” was one to nurture.
Earlier, another circle closed on a cold Irish May day, when the crowned head of England swept up a lime-tree avenue in a Dublin suburb to honour the war dead of another era. Less than 24 hours earlier, she had come to honour the rebel Irish who died fighting for freedom from the Crown. Now in a neat piece of diplomatic symmetry, she was preparing to honour the 49,000 Irish who died for the Crown. She alighted from her Range Rover at the Irish War Memorial Garden in Islandbridge, Edwin Lutyens’s monument to peace. No cannons or rifles, no images of fallen soldiers; just a place of calm and simple beauty, whose long neglect and resurrection across the 20th century echoed the national attitude towards those Irishmen and Irishwomen who took up arms for king and Crown nearly a century ago.
At 10.30am, under a lowering sky, ambassadors, representatives of the main churches, and retired UN soldiers had assembled, together with figures from the UDA/UVF and leaders of the Northern Ireland political parties.
With the exception of Sinn Féin, of course, who stayed away.
At noon, in a ceremony heavy with symbolism, President Mary McAleese and the Queen climbed the steps to the green carpet and once again, the strains of God Save the Queen soared through a sacred Irish space.
The Queen placed a wreath of poppies on the stand; the President laid one of laurels. As the latter’s light coat was whipped by the damp, swirling wind and women feared for their hair and hats (though not the Queen, whose hair and hat remained sternly motionless), they observed the solemn silence. It ended with the raising of the Tricolour and a piper playing an old lament, Oft in the Stilly Night, with its poignant lines: “When I remember all the friends, so link’d together, I’ve seen around me fall, Like leaves in wintry weather . . .”
Then to the Granite Rooms to see Harry Clarke’s illuminated manuscripts containing the names of the fallen, and the original 13ft Guillemont Ginchy Cross with its carved shamrock, fashioned from a beam of elm on the orders of the commander of the 16th Irish Division which fought valiantly at the Somme.
As the hour approached for the Croke Park visit with all its grim history, the sky and the mood lightened. The Queen, now in primrose yellow and a pink feather-trimmed hat, arrived to a welcoming committee of children waving flags in their county colours. A quick chat with four tracksuited players was followed by a lesson in the difference between shinty and hurling during which she ran a hand over a hurley, while in the background, Dr Martin McAleese, a doughty footballer in his time, explained all to the Duke of Edinburgh.
Then the party did something that many a viewer has dreamed about – they emerged on to the pitch through the players’ tunnel (although a white carpet probably isn’t a common feature of those dreams), to a yawningly empty stadium, alas. Then they sat in chairs placed on the sideline to watch a video about the GAA on a massive screen. The footage included a delirious priest and a cheerful woman hanging out jerseys and more contemporary scenes of girls playing camogie and some feverish, speeded-up big game footage. “All for something money can’t buy”, intoned the voiceover, “pride in the parish, pride in the club, pride in the community”, (unlike that ghastly soccer thing, she didn’t add).
Then the Artane band came on the pitch and the party took itself upstairs to the Hogan Stand mezzanine to meet an army of GAA stalwarts and to watch some earnest looking set-dancers from Abbeyknockmoy in Galway and admire the iconic trophies.
No-one mentioned the war, Bloody Sunday, or the fact that the GAA still has refuseniks in its ranks. The head of the Ulster Council was there, but Down was the only county in the Ulster Council to be represented, by all accounts. She was presented with a leather-bound copy of The GAA: A People’s History by the association’s president, Christy Cooney, who made a sure-footed speech, referring to a “shared history” and “many tragic events . . . which include those who have died in this place”. There was nothing mealy-mouthed about his declaration to the Queen that “your presence does honour to our place”.When the Duke was presented with a hurley and sliotar and appeared to eye them with intent, Cooney warned – “but the only place to use it is in the field out there”. Then he relented. “You can use it in your backyard”, he said, which seems fair enough since the Duke’s back yard is probably a good deal bigger than Croke Park.
On the earlier "windows" tour of the Guinness Gravity Bar with its panoramic view of Dublin 's skyline, there was a moment when it looked like the Duke would reach out for the pint of Guinness so lovingly poured for them. Go on – you know you want to, prayed the Guinness marketers as he hovered agonisingly close. Alas, he resisted – perhaps for reasons related to his earlier question. Did the water come from the Liffey, he asked. Maybe the answer – "Oh no. Pure and pristine from the hills" – wasn't convincing enough. But for all the light-heartedness, the one thing this visit has highlighted is the impossibility of escaping history in Ireland. The royal courtesy call to Government Buildings included a chat with Enda and Fionnuala Kenny below a portrait of Michael Collins. Then there was the photo opportunity against the magnificent backdrop of Evie Hone's stained-glass window representing the four provinces and entitled My Four Green Fields.