Madam, – What is our Government playing at – inviting the queen to Ireland when our country is nearly broke and doesn’t even have the money to get patients off trolleys into beds in our hospitals? This time we are not going to buy a pig in a poke as we did with the banks. We want to know beforehand how much this visit will cost the hard-pressed Irish taxpayers.
Let Taoiseach Brian Cowen stand up in the Dáil and tell us truthfully what the total cost of her security will be. If he is so anxious to bring the queen here at this time, let President Mary McAleese, Mr Cowen and the other TDs pay the total cost of her visit out of their huge wages and pensions and have the decency not to burden the Irish citizens with more expense.
Is this just another gaffe in the long line of gaffes Mr Cowen has made? Is this the straw that breaks the hearts of so many Irish people alive today whose fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles, grandfathers and grandmothers were battered, bruised and humiliated by the Black and Tans? Is he sinking another nail deep into Fianna Fáil’s coffin? Is this the beginning of the end of Fianna Fáil, the republican party?
– Yours, etc,
Madam, – I shook hands with the Queen of England – or rather she shook hands with me. The protocol is that one proffers one’s hand. The queen takes one’s gloved fingers in her fingers, gently, for a moment (it saves getting her hand broken by hearty enthusiasts).
It was the annual garden party in Hillsborough Castle, 1989, and the first time Queen Elizabeth had visited Northern Ireland in 15 years. I was one of about 30 people who were taken to a private tent on arriving at the garden party. We were arranged in groups of about six and she moved from group to group, being introduced to each of us individually and saying a few words. All she said to me was that she was delighted with the work of Co-operation North (which I worked for) and that I had come from the Republic of Ireland. I bowed slightly, smiled and said thank you and she went on to the next person.
I was in a state of panic, should I or should I not have been in the company of the Queen of England on Irish soil? Why me, when there were a few thousand outside this little tent at the garden party who would have given their eye teeth to be in my position? Why did she welcome me from the Republic? Despite my turmoil, driving home I was glad it had happened. I was up to my eyes in the peace business. If I was serious, I had to challenge all my preceptions.
The next day in the office, a couple of board members turned up to find out how I had managed to get myself invited into the inner sanctum. Naturally they expected it should have been one of them. The clue was in Queen Elizabeth welcoming me from the Republic of Ireland. I was only told the following off the cuff. The powers that be had apparently formally asked for a representative from the Republic to attend. This was declined it seems and I suppose I was the next best thing.
I know I was the only person from the Republic to shake the hand of the Queen of England that day in Hillsborough – this was confirmed to me, but my prying curiosity got me no further.
Things have moved on greatly since then. Our local papers showed photographs of Louth councillors clamouring to shake Queen Elizabeth’s hand at a Co-operation Ireland cross-Border “do” she attended last year.
If the sillies of Sinn Féin really believe in a 32-county Ireland without division, as they claim, what is the difference between Queen Elizabeth attending a garden party with Irish people in Co Down and Co Dublin? I hope she comes to Dublin; I am putting my name down for an invitation now. I hope President Mary McAleese will host this visit. Can it be another garden party? I still have the cotton gloves, the gúna and the big hat. (I have shaken the hand of former president Mary Robinson, with the same gloves!)
– Yours, etc,
.
A chara, – The Mayor of Lismore Bernard Leddy has publicly invited the English monarch Elizabeth Windsor to visit the Waterford town during her proposed state visit to Ireland next year (Home News, June 28th). Just like Mr Leddy’s party leader inviting Elizabeth Windsor to this country in the first place, Mr Leddy’s invitation is appalling and should be opposed.
This woman is the commander-in-chief of the British Armed Forces, 5,000 of whom remain within the six counties as part of Britain’s continued occupation of part of our country. It is a deliberate insult to the families of the victims of the British army here in Ireland and indeed the victims of its continued brutal occupation of Afghanistan.
Such a visit is another attempt by Britain and the 26-counties political establishment to legitimise the British occupation and to “normalise” the partition of our country. But Éirígí has no intention of allowing that to happen under any circumstances. Until there is a complete withdrawal by Britain from Ireland there cannot and will not be any “normalisation” of British-Irish relations.
The bottom line is that, despite the nauseating sycophancy of Brian Cowen and Mr Leddy, any attempt to bring this apologist for state terrorism to our country should be and will be vigorously opposed.
– Is mise,
.
Madam, – Senator Paul Coghlan (Miriam Lord’s Week, June 26th) rightly presses the case for Queen Elizabeth II to follow in Queen Victoria’s 1861 footsteps with a visit to Killarney, Ireland’s premier tourist destination, where she is assured the town’s renowned hospitality. The 150th anniversary visit should also be the occasion of a special stamp from An Post, giving a much needed boost to our tourist industry.
– Yours, etc,