Let history rest and welcome the queen

IT seems Seamus Kearney (Letters, June 25) objects to Queen Elizabeth’s visit on the extraordinary grounds that it would coincide with the 150th anniversary of a visit paid here by Queen Victoria in 1861.

Perhaps Mr Kearney would be more satisfied with a year such as 2016 which would not be the anniversary of any such significant event?

Regarding the relative Great Famine donations of Victoria and the Ottoman sultan, the British monarch could donate only what her government allowed and the sultan’s offer was refused by the government of the day — not by Victoria.

The queen by then had very little actual power, just like here successor today.

The government response to this great calamity was woefully inadequate, but the famine was of such magnitude, and so unprecedented, that any government response would have been so.

Tony Blair has already apologised for this. For Queen Elizabeth to apologise again, as Mr Kearney suggests, would therefore be meaningless, devaluing the very thing upon which Mr Kearney places such importance.

That a visit from the head of state of our nearest neighbour meets with such resentment in this day and age defies logic.

There is no good to be found in reaching back to the events of 150 years ago to manufacture a reason for the queen’s visit of friendship and peace to be postponed yet again.

JJ McGrath

Birchgrove

Hollyford

Co Tipperary