The Independent’s Robert Fisk on that state visit.
The Irish papers, normally so acerbic in their coverage of all things royal, positively purred with self-satisfaction that “the Queen” – not Queen Elizabeth, mark you, as she would have been called by any other self-respecting republic – had greeted the Irish President with all the Queen’s horses and all the Queen’s men.
I have always suspected that deep in the soul of every middle-aged Irish lady – far more than Irish men, perhaps – there lies a sneaking affection for the tiaras, and brocade, and the palace, and the castle, and the pomp and circumstance that their grandparents rejected in 1920 (though not so wholeheartedly as we may believe – Ireland remained within the Commonwealth until after the Second World War).
….But last week was revealing in other ways. While the British media dwelt upon the sins of Martin McGuinness and his IRA past and his handshake with the Queen of England, the Irish papers fulfilled the role of the British press in sanctifying the rule of Good Queen Bess.
The London correspondent of The Irish Times wrote of the “kaleidoscope of memories” which the royal week had left behind. Miriam Lord, normally stabbing (accurately) the hypocrites of Dail Eireann – was at her softest when it came to our beloved Queen and the Irish President’s success – “then it was back to Windsor Castle for a special reception with a Northern Ireland theme…”
FIGHT!
(Aras/Photocall Ireland)
