Queen in Ireland: no ‘s’ word
It’s day 2 of the Queen‘s “most important trip of her reign” as they are calling it out here. The word seems to be seeping out to the media that HMQ will not tonight be saying “sorry” when she speaks at the state banquet. It was the only potential self-made blip in the trip as expectations were getting out of control.
“Sorry” is a policy word and the Queen does ceremonial, not policy. That can include ceremonial speeches which deal with shared pasts and pain and which try to convey poignancy and regret without using the “s” word. It can also include the much more powerful cermonial silence in front of the memorial to those who died in the Irish struggle.
One thing you can expect from the Queen’s short speech this evening is a tribute to the role played by Irish people and people with Irish ancestry in British life. That might sound entirely prosaic but probably not if you are of an older generation that remembers signs in lodgings windows that say “No Dogs, No Irish, No Blacks.”
You get a foretaste of the sort of stuff the Queen might say in a little-noticed visit that Prince Charles made to the Irish Embassy in London in November last year. The great and the good of Britain’s Irish were gathered in big numbers to hear the heir to the throne pay tribute to their collective contribution to British life in a way that no-one could remember hearing ever before.
Read more on the Queen’s visit to Ireland: ‘we are ready now to move on’
Terry Wogan did quite a strident introduction that touched on the past pain of the relationship between the two countries and the indignities visited on Irish in Britain inthe past. It didn’t faze Prince Charles at all according to those who were monitoring his every facial muscle. The Prince then spoke about how “we need no longer be victims of our difficult history with each other…I hope that we can become subjects of our history and not its prisoners.” Expect to hear something like that from the Queen this evening.
Those in Ireland who were waiting to see the Queen take a glug of Guinness on her tour of the Guinness Storehouse today will be disappointed. The RTE star Ryan Tubridy, who will be hosting her there, revealed that it’s been decided that 11am is “too early” for a drink. He also revealed that one of the reasons for slipping the Guinness stop into the tour is so that The Queen can actually see Dublin (albeit from the panoramic viewing windows of the Gravity Bar). It’s a city she will otherwise not really get to know because of the massive security arrangements. Ryan Turbridy was asked if he’d be walking backwards in front the Queen and what the protocol was. He said he would not be “moonwalking” in front of the Queen, and that should bring another sigh of relief to the organisers, who are probably building up to a volcanic sigh of relief on Friday when the whole trip ends.
By the way, Fintan O’Toole in a review of today’s newspapers on late night tv last night was struck by how many UK papers used the “one small step” analogy for the Queen stepping on to Irish soil, saying it might not be completely coincidental that they equate Ireland with the moon.