Leinster House this afternoon
There is a poignant image of [Garret] FitzGerald a year or so after the signing of the agreement when he visited Northern Ireland amid tight security. He made it his business to break away from his entourage and shake the hand of a Royal Ulster Constabulary officer who had been guarding him.
At the time, the RUC was facing the enmity of not only the Provisional IRA but also extreme loyalists, who were burning police officers out of their homes because the force had been asked to physically defend the new Anglo-Irish Secretariat building on the outskirts of east Belfast.
The handshake was probably the first since Seán Lemass went to Northern Ireland to meet his prime ministerial counterpart, Sir Terence O’Neill, in the 1960s.
Garret FitzGerald’s Death Casts Shadow Over Royal Visit (Henry McDonald, Guardian)