State visit the jewel in the crown of royal encounters
Famed around the globe for the level of the pomp and circumstance lavished on favoured guests, the British state is keen for this to be the jewel in the crown of recent royal encounters intended to underline the rebalancing of a troubled relationship fit for the 21st century.
But it will be a trip back to the future as the splendours of imperial pageantry and ancient tradition are showered on Mr Higgins and his wife Sabina in the first ever state visit to Britain by an Irish president.
Partly offered in thanks for the Queen’s historic tour of the Irish Republic in 2011, during which she underlined the rapidly changing nature of the relationship between the two countries by nodding her head at the memorial to the Republican dead in Dublin, the monarch has made it clear she intends to make more than a nod to ensure her guests feel especially welcome.
State visits to Britain are rationed to two a year, and the invitation to stay with the monarch at Windsor Castle is one rarely offered.
Each step of the way has been carefully choreographed to dazzle and delight the President, and project a wider image of two nations for so long divided in struggle and bloodshed, now united in trying to forge a more peaceful future.
The visit officially begins today with Prince Charles and wife Camilla calling on the presidential party at the Irish embassy before they journey to Windsor together.
Once in the royal town, the exact schedule sees President Higgins greeted by the Queen, and the two heads of state travel to the castle in a horse-drawn carriage. Once within its battlements, the pomp-ometer was set to be ratcheted-up to full power for a ceremonial welcome inside the castle quadrangle featuring a guard of honour giving the royal salute as the Irish national anthem is played.
The Royal Collection will then be thrown open as the Queen will show Irish-related items to the President.
As with all state visits, Mr Higgins will be whisked to Westminster Abbey to lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier, before giving a brief speech to members of both houses of the British parliament in Westminster. The day will climax with the centre piece of such visits, the State banquet at Windsor Castle where both Queen and President will speak.
The significance of the moment will see the North’s deputy first minister Martin McGuinness join the dignitaries just three years after Sinn Féin refused to meet the Queen during her visit to the Republic.
A visit to British prime minister David Cameron will be the centre-piece of tomorrow’s schedule, but a more soft focus touch will be felt at Windsor Castle when Domhnall, the Irish Guards’ wolfhound regimental mascot, will be presented with a new dog coat.
The contribution of Irish immigrants to Britain will be a continuing feature of the visit, intended to honour a community forced to turn inwards on itself due to the violence and mistrust unleashed by the Troubles.
Irish culture will also feature heavily with a special concert at the Royal Albert Hall, and the poetic side of the presidency will be to the fore when Mr Higgins acknowledges England’s greatest writer during a visit to Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-Upon-Avon on Friday.
Shakespeare lived through what was known as the “golden age” of Elizabeth 1, though her crushed subjects in Ireland did not view the era so favourably.
The stage for Mr Higgins’s visit has been carefully set to ensure the closing phase of Elizabeth II’s reign lives up to Enda Kenny’s declaration that relations between Ireland and Britain have now entered a “golden age” of their own.
