Charles and Camilla plan Irish visit next month

The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall are to visit the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in May, Clarence House has announced.

Charles and Camilla’s four-day trip will take them to Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, where the prince’s grand-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, was killed in an IRA bombing in August 1979.

The royal couple are also set to visit Lissadell House and Drumcliffe Church, where WB Yeats is buried.

Charles has visited Ireland in a professional capacity twice before, in May and June 1995 and in February 2002, but this tour will come after the Queen’s highly successful visit to the Republic in May 2011.

Clarence House said: “At the request of the British government, their royal highnesses the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will visit Ireland in May.

“Their royal highnesses will also visit Northern Ireland in the same period. The four-day visit to both countries will take place from May 19 to 22.

“Planning is still in progress and more details will be released in due course.”

It is highly unusual for a high-profile royal visit to Northern Ireland in be announced in advance and is testament to how far security concerns have improved in recent years.

Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan welcomed the trip. “Following the reciprocal state visits of recent years, this visit to Ireland will represent a further expression of the warm and friendly relations which now exist between us,” he said.

“We look forward to their arrival next month, and to a visit programme which reflects the quality of these relations.”

Sligo mayor Tom McSharry said the visit will be a chance to put the region on the world map.

“It’s equally as significant as the Queen’s visit to Dublin [and Cork] and shows how far we have moved to heal the relationships that might have been fractured in the past,” he said.

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