Clinton ‘thrilled’ by prospect of SF and Queen meeting

Former US president Bill Clinton has hailed the political significance of next week’s meeting between the Queen of England and Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness.

Mr Clinton said successive British governments had reconciled themselves with Sinn Féin but the decision by Queen Elizabeth to do so was a gesture on behalf of a nation.

And that should not be underestimated, he said, especially because she had lost her cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten to an IRA bomb attack in 1979.

“The queen doing it says that not just the current British government or the government of Tony Blair or the government of John Major but the nation has made a decision to reconcile. And she had something to get over too you know — they lost Mountbatten — they lost a lot. This is a big deal,” he said.

Sinn Féin’s leadership yesterday voted to allow Mr McGuinness take part in a meeting in Belfast where the queen will be in attendance. Mr Clinton was speaking at Ballymaloe House, Cork, where there was a celebration night to mark the success of the Promising Ireland Fund.

The dinner was attended by 250 guests, including Taoiseach Enda Kenny, US ambassador Dan Rooney, and members of the fund. Mr Clinton was introduced by former US economic envoy to Northern Ireland Declan Kelly and spoke without notes for 30 minutes. Mr Clinton said he was “thrilled” at the prospect of next week’s meeting.

A lifetime literary achievement award was presented by Loretta-Brennan Glucksman to poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney.

Mr Kenny said next week’s meeting followed on from the success of the queen’s visit to Ireland last year.

“It is a normalisation of the relationship and the great thing about the relationship between Ireland and Britain is that it’s very normal,” he said.

Earlier, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said the fact his party colleague, Mr McGuinness, would shake hands with the queen was likely to upset some of its support. He said it would cause “genuine and understandable difficulties for some people, not least some of the victims of British crown forces in Ireland”.

However, he said it was still “the right thing to do at the right time”.

Mr Clinton, who played an important role at a crucial stage of the Peace Process, said the divisions of the past were being dealt with but there would be other problems in the future.

“There will be new and different challenges. The Irish in the North reconciled with each other and the UK with Ireland and now you have to worry about the internal conflicts within the Irish Republic over emigration and other kinds of differences always borne of economic adversity,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Mr Clinton played golf at the Old Head of Kinsale and surprised shoppers in St Patrick’s Street, Cork, by visiting bookshops.