Queen’s last-minute walkabout decision

QUEEN ELIZABETH II told her security just minutes before she left Cork’s English Market that she wanted to do a walkabout among the waiting public.

A senior Garda source said Royal Protection Officers (RPOs) communicated the monarch’s desire to his officers that she wanted to meet the crowds on the last leg of her four-day visit here.

Earlier that day, while she was visiting the Rock of Cashel in Co Tipperary, RPOs had mooted that the Queen might like to meet some local well-wishers before she returned home from making history as the first British monarch to visit the Republic.