Queen Elizabeth II will attend a State dinner in Dublin Castle and visit Croke Park and Cork next month, according to official details of her visit to Ireland announced today.
The monarch is making the State visit at the invitation of President Mary McAleese from Tuesday, May 17th to Friday, May 20th. She will be accompanied by her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh.
The programme will include a formal welcome by Mrs McAleese at Áras an Uachtaráin; a ceremony at the Garden of Remembrance; a courtesy call on Taoiseach Enda Kenny at Government Buildings; and a State dinner in Dublin Castle, at which the queen and Mrs McAleese will deliver speeches.
There will also be events at Trinity College Dublin, the National War Memorial Gardens in Islandbridge, the Guinness Storehouse and Croke Park.
The queen and her husband will also visit the Irish National Stud in Kildare as well as Cashel and Cork.
A return event celebrating the queen's visit will be hosted by the British ambassador.
The queen's visit to Dublin is the first by a British sovereign in a century. In a brief note last month, Buckingham Palace said the queen had been “pleased” to accept the invitation from Mrs McAleese, who has long wanted it to happen.
The announcement was welcomed by all political parties in the Republic, bar Sinn Féin. The party declared the visit was “premature” but did not go as far as saying that it would actively oppose it.
Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson said the visit was “appropriate and timely” given the good relations that exist, illustrated most vividly by the UK’s decision to put up a £7 billion loan for Ireland.
George V, accompanied by Queen Mary, was the last British monarch to visit Ireland in 1911, where the welcome offered led him to tell friends later that it was “as warm-hearted and enthusiastic as any that he has ever received”.