Queen Elizabeth obituary: A diligent ruler who helped thaw Anglo-Irish relations

Born: April 21st, 1926

Died: September 8th, 2022

Queen Elizabeth II, who has died at the age of 96, was the longest-serving of all British monarchs reigning for 70 years. She was much revered among her own subjects and admired worldwide, especially in the Commonwealth.

She was the first British monarch since King Henry VII who did not reign over the whole island of Ireland. She was also the first to visit this State since independence. Her visit in 2011 was successful beyond expectations, a success due, in no small measure, to the personal impact she made. It marked a high point in a long delayed thaw in political relations between Britain and the Republic.

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It was the fulfilment of an ambition she inherited from her father, George VI, who viewed the Irish affectionately as part of the family. This ambition was often shared with Irish acquaintances of every tradition in her beloved racing world, where close links between the two islands transcended political divisions. It was, she felt, an anomaly that she had made state visits to so many countries across the globe – some of them, such as Germany, deadly enemies in recent times – but had never even set foot in the country closest to Britain with which there were many close ties.

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Unresolved differences about the governance of Northern Ireland were the problem, and the assassination by the IRA in 1979 of her husband’s uncle Lord Mountbatten brought home to her the security risks involved. However, the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 signalled a new era of co-operation between the two governments, opening up the possibility of State visits. In 1995, following the IRA ceasefire, Prince Charles led the way; the reception he received on his Irish visit encouraged his mother.

In the wake of the 1998 Belfast Agreement she joined with the new Irish President, Mary McAleese in laying wreaths at the Peace Park in Belgium. They met again several times when both were in Northern Ireland and became friendly. The president pressed for Queen Elizabeth to be invited to make a State visit. Only when the Belfast Agreement was given full effect, with Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party forming a powersharing executive, did the governments agree that it would be safe for Queen Elizabeth to come to the Republic.

Elizabeth’s upbringing was sheltered and rather isolated from other children. Her education was entrusted to a governess

It could easily have gone wrong. Many Irish nationalists still resented her claim to be queen of Northern Ireland. Many were affronted by the sectarian prohibition of royal marriages to Catholics. Her visit had potential to open up old divisions in Irish society. While Sinn Féin had not opposed the visit, demonstrations, or worse, orchestrated by more extreme elements could have marred or even ruined the event.

Security fears

It was indicative of the unease about security that, on her arrival in Dublin, Queen Elizabeth drove through streets kept empty of spectators on her way to lay a wreath and bow her head at the memorial in Parnell Square to the patriot dead. This winning gesture set the tone of reconciliation that permeated the whole visit, as the queen called at Croke Park, spoke cúpla focal at the State banquet in her honour and commemorated at Islandbridge the many Irish who died wearing a British uniform in the first World War.

Visits to the National Stud and to the world-famous Coolmore indulged her enthusiasm for horses, which had fuelled her desire to get to Ireland. The closing day in Cork lent an air of informality and amusement; she was able to mix freely in the English Market and laughed heartily when a local fishmonger, upon being presented to her, blurted out that he had not been so nervous since his wedding night.

Queen Elizabeth’s life spanned almost the entire life of the Irish State; she was born on April 21st, 1926, less than four years after it came into existence as a dominion. She was the first child and elder daughter of Prince Albert, Duke of York, and grandchild of the reigning king, George V. The birth took place at the London home of her mother’s Scottish parents, the earl and countess of Strathmore. She was christened Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor and became heir presumptive to the throne when her father succeeded as King George VI in 1936 upon the unanticipated abdication of his childless elder brother King Edward VIII, subsequently duke of Windsor.

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Her upbringing was sheltered and rather isolated from other children. Her education was entrusted to a governess, Miss Crawford, her once beloved “Crawfie”, who offended her later by publishing a memoir of the little girl who called herself “Lillibet”. Winston Churchill noticed in her an air of authority astonishing in an infant. Her shy, tense, volatile father, who suffered from a crippling stammer, was loving and attentive, so creating with her capable mother a childhood that was emotionally secure.

She coped well with the strains imposed on her parents in the war years, when she and her younger sister Margaret were kept out of danger in Windsor Castle. In 1940, aged 14, Princess Elizabeth made her public debut with a girlish broadcast to the children of the embattled empire. In the last year of war she saw service in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, fixing and driving army cars.

When peace returned, she undertook regular royal duties; one was the first of many visits to Northern Ireland in July 1945 for the investiture of posthumous awards to relatives of those who perished in the war.

Devoted wife

In 1947, Princess Elizabeth married the former Prince Philip of Greece, who had served in the royal navy during the war as Philip Mountbatten, the surname of his mother. She had no previous boyfriends, and her father felt the marriage was premature. She was not to be diverted then or later from her total commitment to the man whom, as a 13-year-old, she had admired when first they met in 1939. His gallant service in the war muted reservations arising from some of his family’s associations with Nazi Germany; the marriage in 1947 was greeted with widespread rejoicing, which briefly lifted the besetting gloom of postwar Britain.

Philip was created Duke of Edinburgh and continued with his career in the royal navy; Princess Elizabeth combined public duties with a family life as the wife of a naval officer. Two children were born, Charles in 1948 and Anne in 1950.

King George was soon a doomed man, diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. But the actual death in his sleep in February 1952 was unexpected and occurred when Princess Elizabeth and her husband were in Kenya on a royal tour. She flew back to be received at London airport by prime minister Winston Churchill, his aged head bowed in allegiance as he shook her hand.

She was styled on her accession “By the Grace of God of Great Britain, Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the seas Queen, defender of the Faith”; this was altered before her coronation in June 1953 describing her as Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, her other realms and territories, defender of the Faith and Head of the Commonwealth.

The new title was more consistent with Irish independence, but the inclusion of Northern Ireland offended Mr de Valera’s government and they were represented at the coronation on June 2nd, 1953, attended by many heads of state, only by the Irish ambassador in London. Ministers refused invitations to the garden party given by the British ambassador in Dublin to mark the occasion.

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The Queen Mother (then the Duchess of York) with her husband, King George VI (then the Duke of York), and their daughter Queen Elizabeth II at her christening in May 1926. Photograph : PA

Flag burning

Popular resentment found expression in a picket by the Anti-Partition League outside the British embassy. A Union Jack was burned at a Sinn Féin meeting in Abbey Street and a television showing the ceremony in a nearby pub was smashed. Cinemas yielded subsequently to threats not to show newsreel reports. However, what the London Times described as “covert enthusiasm” was widespread and found expression in private gatherings, often in Protestant church halls, to view the coronation ceremony.

A month afterwards, the newly crowned queen and her husband visited Northern Ireland and were welcomed enthusiastically by the unionist community; there was virtually no contact with the Catholic minority. The early years of the young queen’s reign were a testing time for her marriage. While she was fully occupied reading “the boxes” for weekly audiences with prime ministers, Prince Philip had to give up his naval career and found himself at a loose end; rumours of infidelity abounded. Having first upset the courtiers by changing outdated work practices in Buckingham Palace, he complained of being unable to pass on his surname to his children.

Notwithstanding that his Mountbatten surname came from his mother, he demanded that it should replace that of his wife as the family surname. The queen wanted to oblige the man she loved but Churchill said no – he had little time for the prince and suspected that his pushy uncle Lord Mountbatten had put him up to it.

Queen Elizabeth was, as Tony Blair recognised, a genuine, direct person without artifice who was willing to learn lessons but still determined to remain true to herself

Only in 1960, when Harold Macmillan was prime minister, was the surname Mountbatten-Windsor adopted and then only for those not in the immediate line of succession. In that year, after a long gap, Queen Elizabeth gave birth to a third child, Andrew. He was followed by Prince Edward in 1964. The marriage was harmonious thereafter, albeit that Prince Philip led quite an independent life. “He had”, the queen acknowledged publicly late in life, “been my strength and stay.”

The victory of the Labour Party at the 1964 general election presented Queen Elizabeth with a new challenge, having in Harold Wilson a prime minister not from the traditional ruling class. He was impressed by her grasp of Labour policies and wish to be supportive. A cosy relationship developed, which was replicated when James Callaghan, also of Labour, succeeded in 1976. Nobody could now doubt the political neutrality of the monarchy. Prime ministers were scrupulous not to reveal the queen’s views until David Cameron let slip in 2014 that she was pleased when Scottish independence was rejected in the referendum.

Queen Elizabeth harboured regrets about the sundering of links with Commonwealth countries that followed entry into Europe in 1973. She strove, ever after, to maintain these links regardless of the decline in their political and economic significance. She valued greatly her position as head of the Commonwealth, making arduous journeys well into this century to their meetings and to visit individual countries within it; she went to Australia 16 times.

Her silver jubilee in 1977 was celebrated joyfully in Britain. It was less successful in Northern Ireland, where she was greeted by threats from republicans, who staged hostile marches. She did not return until 1991.

The 1980s were more difficult; marital breakdowns within the royal family beset the queen, not made easy by her strong belief in the sanctity of marriage. Early in her reign, the government had insisted that she exercise her powers under an 18th-century Royal Marriages Act to delay the marriage of her beloved younger sister Margaret to a divorced man with whom she was in love. The breakdown in Princess Margaret’s later marriage and her subsequent unsettled life, often with unsuitable companions, distressed her sister. Tipperary-born antique dealer Ned Ryan was one friend who might have been counted unsuitable but the queen so appreciated his loyalty that she sent Prince Edward’s wife to represent her at Ryan’s funeral in Upperchurch in 2003, a year after Margaret’s death.

Diana divisions

Three of the queen’s four children also faced marriage breakdown. That of her son and heir, Charles, from Lady Diana Spencer, whom he had married in 1981, rocked the monarchy. Diana had gone public indicting Charles for his infidelity and complaining of the lack of support she received from his parents.

When, in August 1997, shortly after her divorce from Prince Charles, Diana died in a car crash in Paris, Queen Elizabeth was in Balmoral, her home in Scotland. No flag was flown at half-mast at Buckingham Palace nor other royal residences because Diana was no longer a member of the royal family; while thousands left flowers outside the palace, the queen remained silent at her Scottish home for several days before paying a measured tribute.

“It was all very by-the-book,” recalled then prime minister Tony Blair, “but it took no account of the fact that the people could not give a damn about ‘the book’, actually disliked ‘the book’, in fact thought ‘the book’ had in part produced the chain of events that led to Diana’s death. In the strange symbiosis between ruler and ruled, the people were insisting that the queen acknowledge that she ruled by their consent, and bend to their insistence.”

It betokened that her hold on public affections, especially among the younger generation, had weakened over the years. In a more informal age, where dignity was less valued, she remained formal, not sharing widely her witty and fun-loving self, known to friends, believing that the dignity of her position required her to maintain a certain reserve.

It was also a criticism that the queen had not moved with the times and was too embedded in the traditional aristocracy. Surrounded by her beloved Corgi dogs and riding out daily on her horse, she seemed to lead a life untouched by the modern world. In a more egalitarian age, her grandeur, however unaffected, provoked occasional satire.

Queen Elizabeth was, as Blair recognised, a genuine, direct person without artifice who was willing to learn lessons but still determined to remain true to herself; it was always her way not to react to unpleasing remarks and acts of others. She soldiered on into the new century making age her ally, bringing with it a softening in her that reignited an affection different, but not less, than that felt for her when she was a glamorous young monarch. In her disciplined way she maintained her trim figure and general fitness through life. She remained a master of small talk, reaching out politely to all she met. It was hard not to admire an older person so hard-working and dedicated.

McGuinness

She maintained a useful role in Irish affairs after her visit in 2011. In 2012 she shook hands in Belfast with former IRA leader Martin McGuinness, then deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, and, on a subsequent occasion, she was escorted around the former Crumlin Road Gaol by him and unionist first minister Peter Robinson – both had been imprisoned there.

McGuinness was present and joined in toasting Queen Elizabeth at her banquet in Windsor when President Higgins paid his State visit to Britain in 2014. On that occasion she expressed the hope that “We should no longer allow our past to ensnare our future.”

Her deep religious faith, avowed annually in her moving Christmas broadcasts, sustained her when Prince Philip died in April 2021. In October she was scheduled to attend a church service in Armagh marking the centenary of Northern Ireland. Shortly beforehand it was announced that she had been ordered to rest by her doctors and would not attend. It was announced that she would be reducing her public engagements.

She stayed away from the Cop26 UN Climate Change Conference at the beginning of November on her doctors’ orders, but sent a video message to the leaders urging them to rise above the politics of the moment and show true leadership.

She then missed the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph due to a sprained back, extending her absence from public life.