The jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II is being celebrated this weekend throughout the United Kingdom. There are services, celebrity concerts, parades and street parties. In redbrick terraces and country mansions, the champagne and the bitter - depending on taste - will be broken out.Queen Elizabeth has reigned for a remarkable 50 years, a period no less marked by change than the first 50 years of her ancestor Queen Victoria.
Victoria's empire spanned the globe and the economy transferred from a rural to an industrial base, making Britain, for a time, the richest country in the world. Elizabeth's Britain has been, in contrast, a nation in retreat from political and financial dominance.
Monarchy may be an anachronism in the modern world. Britain alone retains pomp and ceremony - along with royal wealth and privilege - on a scale redolent of the the imperial age. It is baffling to outsiders and yet there are many - in this country, as elsewhere - who will admit to being fascinated by it all.
Popular support for the monarchy is in decline even in Britain. Yet Queen Elizabeth has succeeded in remaining personally popular and respected. She is without doubt an extraordinary woman, of great determination and character, imbued with an absolute sense of duty to her people. In the complex constitutional and social organism that is Britain in the 21st century she plays a unique and necessary role. It is difficult to visualise the United Kingdom without her on the throne.
There perhaps, lies the paradox of her reign. Monarchy is about continuity. But such is her standing as head of state and leader of her people that her heir can hardly expect to measure up. Will she therefore remain on the throne until her death? Some observers believe that she will wait a little while to enable Prince Charles to marry Mrs Camilla Parker-Bowles and then step aside.
What the future may hold for Britain's monarchy remains to be seen. For the moment, it is a time for celebration by the people of the United Kingdom. They include perhaps 4 million Irish living in Britain itself and one and a half million in Northern Ireland, of whom a majority declare loyalty to the crown. Many first and second generation Irish will raise a glass in London, Liverpool and Glasgow today. There will be toasts in many a loyal house in Northern Ireland. They, and the wider British family, are well entitled to their celebration.