President's UK visit not intended to ‘force amnesia’ about past

President Michael D Higgins has insisted his state visit to Britain was not intended to “force amnesia” about the country’s past treatment of Ireland.

Returning to Dublin after the widely praised four-day tour of England, he defended himself against those who had criticised the stance he took.

After a day which saw the Queen bid him an official farewell at Windsor Castle, and Mr Higgins tread the boards at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon, the President completed his trip with a visit to the Irish community in Coventry.

Mr Higgins used the event to insist Irish and British people are “not required to be sentimental about each other”. “We’ve had our comings and goings. That’s that. That’s fine and we’re not required, as I’ve said and I repeat again, to become involved in any amnesia about different events.”

Mr Higgins called on critics of the tone he took during the first state visit to Britain by an Irish president to think “of all the things we have in common”.

The President said his talks with the Queen were meaningful: “We weren’t just going through the motions of a formal state visit. We discussed the necessity of being vigilant, and also the deepening of the connection.”

Mr Higgins said he had no problem sharing the national grief with a British royal during the commemoration of the 1916 uprising.

“I haven’t the slightest difficulty in recognising shared grief, recognising the personal actions based on ethics of the highest kind,” the President said.

The Queen surprised observers by using her welcome speech to Mr Higgins at the beginning of his stay at Windsor Castle to say her family and government would “stand alongside” Irish ministers as they marked the anniversaries of the First World War and the events leading up to the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922.

The final day of the tour continued the theme of trying to create a shift in the attitudes Britain and Ireland have towards each other as the President and his wife Sabina visited Coventry Cathedral, which is famed as a focal point for religious reconciliation.

At the cathedral, rebuilt around the bomb damage of World War II, the President said: “You rebuilt and dedicated your cathedral to reconciliation and forgiveness — reminding the world, at a dark time, that humanity and compassion had not been extinguished.”

Mr Higgins said it was right for the North’s Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, to be involved in the visit as part of the wider peace process.

The visit saw the President address both houses of the British parliament, and promote Irish exports, especially in the food and agriculture sector.