President’s mind ‘will be on emigrants’ during Windsor Castle visit

President Michael D Higgins said he will think of his two sisters, his childhood neighbours and all the other Irish emigrants “who have come and contributed to Britain” when he is welcomed at Windsor Castle today.

The President — who last night landed in London with his wife, Sabina — said he is “very moved” and “excited” about his four-day State visit, which officially begins today, but “a bit anxious that it all goes well”.

He said he hopes to reflect — when it is all over — on his own father who had fought in the War of Independence.

In a wide-ranging interview with Today FM ahead of the historic visit, he described how he once worked as a “silver service” waiter in Brighton in his youth, and revealed that he is an occasional follower of Chelsea.

President Higgins said his visit will represent a “further step on a journey beyond peace, towards a sustainable kindness and prosperity with each other”.

It will mean “an enormous amount to the Irish in Britain and many will think of what their parents and grandparents might have thought when they went across the Irish Sea in different times”.

Meanwhile, the full scale of the security operation for the 2012 visit of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland has been revealed, with retired Garda commissioner Martin Callinan telling an RTÉ documentary there had been “a real and substantial” threat to her safety.

In The Insiders, screened last night, the retired commissioner said “credible intelligence” in the lead-up to the visit three years ago led to arrests and “huge resources” were put in place to counter any threat posed by dissident republicans.

“The threat is real and substantial in terms of the IRA, who it was very clear were out to — if they could — inflict fatal damage,” he said.

“We have a number of very active people here that we have to monitor very, very closely and that’s what we did, and we put enormous resources into ensuring that we knew what they were up to and that we knew their movements.”

According to Mr Callinan: “Very credible intelligence was available to us very early on that led to very significant arrests.

“It is the case that some of our members were placed in very great danger.

“In one of the locations up in Dorset St, later on when we were doing a sweep of the area, we found a very viable improvised explosive device.”