The Queen's tea for two at Buckingham Palace tomorrow with Irish
President Mary Robinson, is a landmark in British-Irish relations, John
Cooney reports from Dublin.
PRESIDENT Mary Robinson's courtesy call on the Queen tomorrow, the
first by an Irish head of state since the country won its independence
from Britain 72 years ago, has been widely welcomed in the republic,
much to the surprise of the political establishments in Dublin and
London.
This positive response reflects the dramatic decline in the
anti-British monarchy sentiment which prevailed in the early decades of
the independent Irish state.
So favourable has the reaction been to the news of the visit that over
the weekend Prime Minister Albert Reynolds boasted of how he met the
Queen at dinner on board the royal yacht Britannia which was berthed at
Leith during December's EC summit in Edinburgh.
This neighbourly mood is in sharp contrast with even the early 1960s
when a visit by Princess Margaret to Ireland was accompanied by riots
and was followed by a gun attack against a British torpedo ship off the
Waterford coast.
In recent years Irish public opinion has become accustomed to a flurry
of private visits by the royals. Some have been low profile, but others,
like the luncheon engagement of the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, with
former Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey at Punchestown races in
1991, and Prince Edward attending a rugby match at Lansdowne Road that
same year, have been given celebrity treatment by the media.
Since Ireland joined the European Community in 1973, British Prime
Ministers and Government Ministers have become regular visitors to
Ireland for discussions on a wide range of economic issues.
But it was not until Mrs Robinson was elected President in November
1990 that speculation has grown of an Irish head of state developing
close personal links with the British monarch.
As journalist Michael O'Sullivan, who is writing a biography of Mrs
Robinson, points out, her own family, the Bourkes of Ballina, Co. Mayo,
have had close links with the royal household. For example, her uncle,
Sir Paget Bourke, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1957.
A year ago Mrs Robinson signalled her public support for a visit to
Ireland by Princess Anne. Asked on Irish radio for her reaction to the
declared wish of the Princess to make an official visit to the republic,
Mrs Robinson said she knew there were many people in the republic who
would welcome that kind of contact.
In an interview only a few weeks ago with Alan Fisher on the GMTV
breakfast show, Mrs Robinson spoke of her ambition to consolidate
Ireland's relationships with other EC countries including Britain.
Last July Mrs Robinson became the first Irish head of state to visit
Scotland and only a few weeks ago she met Prince Philip when she
attended a memorial service for the victims of the IRA bombing in
Warrington.
None of her predecessors has enjoyed such high esteem in the Queen's
eyes, and Mrs Robinson is also popular with Ulster Unionists, who recall
her opposition in 1985 to the UK-Irish Agreement.
According to government sources in Dublin, Mrs Robinson who today will
receive an honorary degree from Oxford University, is pursuing her own
agenda. Apparently she had let it be known in British diplomatic circles
that she would like to have the opportunity to meet the Queen. She was
pushing an open door at the palace.
THE good rapport between Prime Minister John Major and his Irish
counterpart Albert Reynolds has ensured the first courtesy call to
Buckingham Palace by an Irish head of state has received no objections
from Downing Street or Merrion Street.
This more relaxed and tolerant attitude towards British royalty is in
marked contrast to earlier decades when virulent anti-monarchism was a
badge of Irish republicanism.
High-profile royal visits to Ireland took place in the pre-partition
days of 1903 and 1911, the first by King Edward VII and the second by
King George V and Queen Mary. On both occasions the royals visited the
capital of Irish catholicism, St Patrick's College, Maynooth, in Co.
Kildare. On the second occasion their host was the president of
Maynooth, Monsignor Daniel Mannix, later to become a rabid champion of
Irish republicanism as Archbishop of Melbourne.
The place of the British monarch was at the centre of the Irish
national question. According to historian David Harkness, a speech by
King George V at the official opening of the first parliament for
Northern Ireland in Belfast City Hall on June 22, 1921, proved to be a
turning point in bringing about negotiations between the Government of
Lloyd George and ''the illegal Dail ministry'' headed by Eamon De
Valera.
The subsequent treaty gave the 26-county Irish State the same status
as the then British dominion of Canada. De Valera's opposition to this
treaty led to his break with Michael Collins. Civil war followed soon
afterwards.
In 1927 De Valera brought his followers into parliamentary politics
when they signed their names in the Dail book while publicly claiming
that they had made mental reservations about signing the oath of loyalty
to the crown.
But De Valera, the politician who removed the British monarch from a
role in Irish domestic affairs in the 1937 constitution, carefully
avoided cutting the last link with Britain through Ireland's membership
of the Commonwealth.
It was during a visit to Canada in 1948 that the then Prime Minister,
John A. Costello, announced that Ireland was leaving the Commonwealth
and formally declaring itself a republic. Such events are literally
history for many of Ireland's population now under 40.
The visit of Mrs Robinson to Buckingham Palace will earn her a place
in the history of British-Irish diplomatic relations. But a government
spokesman in Dublin was at pains to emphasise that the visit does not
signal reciprocal state visits by the Queen to Ireland and Mrs Robinson
to Britain.
Given the continuing IRA campaign, security reasons will ensure that
such disclaimers from official sources will continue until any state
visit has begun.
While such a state visit may be some time away, this latest
development will provoke debate among those who would claim that the
republic should rejoin the Commonwealth in an effort to facilitate a
solution to the Northern Ireland problem.
But the Commonwealth argument may be somewhat redundant as Britain and
Ireland prepare to ratify the Maastricht Treaty which brings both
islands a step closer in a European union.
Even if the Queen and President Robinson do no more than engage in
small talk over tea, they will have transcended a 72-year-old barrier
which will make the IRA appear caught up in an uncomfortable time warp.
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