Elizabeth’s visit should not coincide with the Famine Queen’s anniversary

THIS proposed visit by Queen Elizabeth II for autumn next year will coincide with the 150th anniversary of her great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria’s visit to Killarney in 1861.

I find that her visit provokes controversy from the very hint of her relative. Victoria is without doubt not viewed with high esteem here in Ireland.

During her reign, when this country was being ravaged by the Great Famine she blocked a donation of £10,000 from the Ottoman Sultan, she demanded he only donate £1,000.

Her reasoning? She herself had only donated £2,000 to the plight of the starving Irish.

If any visit retracing the steps of the Queen Victoria occurs, it would be insulting not to apologise for this. Such an apology, however, would not be very forthcoming from Britain’s current monarch – she prefers not to get involved with the past as with state visits to other former realms has shown.

However, the British-Irish relationship has never been better than it is today.

The North has a functioning government and even Ian Paisley visited Dáil Eireann, he famously declined a 1980s invite by replying with “Ulster says NO” stamped on the invite. But if the British monarch were to visit the hard-fought for soil of Eire, it would ultimately ignite old tensions all over again.

It could have the capacity to plunge the country into an ideological civil war. But then again, we are mature now, we’re not easily led anymore, look at Paisley, he pranced about Dublin without the hint of a protest.

In my honest opinion, I think she has to come sometime, but not to commemorate the “Famine Queen”.

Seamus Kearney

Lismire

Co Cork