QUEEN ELIZABETH has begun a three-day visit to Northern Ireland with a series of engagements in Derry. She arrived at Derry airport yesterday afternoon.
Accompanied by Prince Phillip and Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward, her first visit was to the recently opened Lisneal College on the outskirts of Derry, where 900 pupils attend a new £17 million school on a green 22-acre site on the city’s Waterside.
There to greet them were around 100 primary school children from the Protestant Fountain area of Derry.
The queen was met by Dr Donal Keegan, the Lord Lieutenant of the county borough of Londonderry and by college principal David Funston along with members of the school staff and board of governors.
She also met First Minister Peter Robinson, Foyle MP and SDLP leader Mark Durkan, the Mayor of Derry Gerard Diver and local Assembly member and speaker William Hay.
The queen was shown the school’s new facilities, including a dental surgery which had been specially developed and staffed in an effort to boost the dental health of pupils.
She was then shown around the college’s dining facilities where pupils use a new biometric payment system which uses fingerprints to deduct payments from pre-paid accounts.
The queen chatted with some canteen staff who demonstrated the system and with 14-year-old Hanna Boyle, a year 10 pupil from Eglinton who is the young cook of the year and is the holder of a health promotion school award in catering.
The queen also visited the business studies department and met some of the students involved in the Young Enterprise Competition.
She was later brought to the history department and met pupils who have taken part in trips to the first World War battlefields and to the concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland.
The visit was rounded off with a performance by the school orchestra under the head of music Stewart Smith before the queen and Prince Phillip unveiled a plaque marking their visit to the area.
They were presented with flowers by head girl Rachael Devine and a replica of “Roaring Meg”, a cannon situated in the old walled city, presented to them by head boy Robert Macbeth.
The queen and her husband continued their visit to the city by viewing the new facilities at the nearby Altnagelvin hospital.
There, the queen visited the maternity wing and chatted to mothers who recently gave birth, while Prince Phillip inspected the hospital’s regional cancer unit. The queen also opened a new multimillion pound hospital wing.