‘Pinch yourself’ moment as God Save the Queen rings out in Dublin

One of the most sensitive moments of the trip is happening: the Queen’s visit to the Garden of Remembrance for those who fought against British rule.

The UK national anthem is being played there and this is truly one of those “pinch yourself” moments.  At the bottom of the sunken pool in the middle is a mosaic which includes images of broken weapons.  The very fact of the visit speaks of contrition, the veteran historian and commentator Tim Pat Coogan has written.  Likewise tomorrow’s visit to Croke Park, the gaelic football stadium where British soldiers fired indiscriminately into the crowd in revenge for the killing of British officers.

Just as the Queen lays her wreath, word is coming from O’Connell Street that the demonstrators have grown to around 150 and have broken through barriers. Irish riot police are on the scene. This is not enough people to create a major disturbance and the Irish police are in monumental numbers but it will provide an extraordinary counterpoint to the silence observed at the garden just now, which was a very powerful moment.

It’s wall-to-wall coverage here on Irish TV (and in Northern Ireland too with special programming) and there are late-night chat shows being laid on too. As I mentioned earlier, there’s little street presence, hardly any opportunity for the public to see the Queen in person, but I find it hard to believe that many people won’t be moved when, back home after work, in the privacy of their living rooms, they watch the silence observed by the Queen in memory of the Republican dead. 

The Queen was up for making this trip earlier. She had met President MacAleese first in 1998 at the Somme memorial, again at a garden party in Northern Ireland and in Buckingham Palace. But Ireland wasn’t going to go ahead with this trip until policing (and justice) were “normalised” in Northern Ireland.

A visit before Stormont settled down into its first full term of continuous service risked dragging the Queen into a decommissioning or procedural row. This clearly isn’t yet the time for a totally “normal” visit in which crowds are encouraged and walkabouts conducted, but the first big moment of ceremony has passed without any difficulty and no mean amount of poignancy.

At the lunch before that David Trimble and John Hume were present. But that wasn’t on camera. The Northern Ireland Secretary isn’t here either at  the moment – though he’ll be along for some of the horsey bits of the itinerary I hear. You’ll notice that Northern Ireland isn’t being thrust to the centre of these events.

The Good Friday Agreement was the key that unlocked this moment (and much more) but this is about recognising Ireland in its own right.

 The Queen, by the way, changed out of her green arrival outfit into something else for the memorial garden trip.  Not sure why.

I’ve seen it estimated that one in three of the population in Ireland watched the royal wedding last month. Watching this Queen’s coronation was a riskier affair. The government banned public showings in cinemas on the grounds they might be subjected to fire or bomb attacks and there are stories of clandestine showings including one in a police station that was advertised as a crowd control training film.

Another Royal anecdote that does the rounds here is that due to some constitutional anomaly, Edward VIII didn’t abdicate as King of Ireland and may, technically, have kept the title until his death in 1972.