President Catherine Connolly's State visit offers a brief reprieve for King Charles
Speaking after she met with King Charles, PresidentCatherine Connolly said they had a lot in common, including the environment and climate change. Picture:
After days of wondering whether he should expect a visitor to Buckingham Palace, King Charles would have been forgiven for thinking the knock on the door was from a new prime minister.
As the political psychodrama continues and Keir Starmer’s political career balances on an ever-contracting ledge, perhaps the King was delighted for a reprieve as President Catherine Connolly arrived in London for an official visit.
While three prime ministers have served during his relatively brief reign as king, Charles has now welcomed two Irish presidents.
Michael D Higgins and Charles had met on many occasions, but this was the first time he had come face to face with President Connolly.
She has embarked on her second official overseas visit since becoming President last November, with some diplomatic eyebrows raised when she chose Spain as her first trip abroad, rather than the UK.
All of that aside, she is here now, and she came with an invitation for Charles in her pocket.
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Charles is, of course, no stranger to Irish shores. As prince of Wales, he became the first British royal to visit the Republic of Ireland in May 1995, when the relationship between Ireland and the UK was tense and the prospect of the Good Friday Agreement was not even in touching distance.
Papers released by the UK National Archives in 2020 showed the trip was described as a “turning point in history”.
Things have changed drastically since then, with royal visits to Ireland as common as the moving trucks outside 10 Downing Street.
Charles returned many more times to Ireland as a prince. However, given that he is now Kkng, his prospective State visit will be a huge occasion, rivalling the visit of his mother, the late queen Elizabeth II, in 2011.
He drove up to Buckingham Palace in his state car on Monday afternoon, waving to the surprised crowds, just minutes before President Connolly’s cavalcade pulled up.
Speaking after she met with King Charles, President Connolly said they had a lot in common, including the environment and climate change.
The meeting makes up only a small part of President Connolly’s three-day trip to the UK.
On Monday morning, she visited the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, which has become a hub for the Irish in London to gather, play, and learn trad music over the last 30 years.
A beaming President sang along to a rendition of , an homage to her hometown.
She later posed with Irish dancers who performed, before joining an Irish language class.
Going slightly off script in her short address, mostly due to her “reluctance to wear her glasses”, President Connolly noted that people have emigrated from Ireland to England in “waves”, a phenomenon that continues today.
“We have people leaving our shores for various reasons, some of them for lack of housing,” she noted.
Her speech at the Irish embassy in London on Monday evening, at a reception for those who have moved to the UK in said waves, was far more political.
She noted that while the Irish-British relationship had improved, for a long time “our history was one of coloniser and colonised, with all of the complexity that entails”.
While not mentioning any country by name, she called out those who break international law.
“We know what happens when the powerful are unconstrained. Our shared experience is our strength. It is what connects us, across the water and across the generations.”
In her conversation with King Charles, President Connolly told the crowd at the embassy, the two had discussed “our unique relationship as close neighbours and our intertwined history”.
That unique relationship will be seen yet again as preparations now get under way for King Charles’ state visit in the coming months.
The monarch will be wondering how many more prime ministers he will have to endure between now and then.
- Louise Burne is Irish Examiner Political Correspondent, reporting from London.
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