A couple of super troopers

A GLANCE at Queen Elizabeth II’s itinerary in Ireland would make you marvel: planting trees, laying wreaths, touring two cities from breweries to colleges, meeting the GAA (not for the faint-hearted, least of all anyone who has no idea of what the GAA is all about), a State dinner, visits to three equine studs, a tour of the Rock of Cashel (marginally less taxing than the GAA but rock-climbing at any age is a challenge), a State banquet, chatting to Cork’s market traders before speeding off to have another chat with its scientists, chemists and physicists.

And all behind closed doors, or at least closed streets, so she never gets to marvel as her great-great grandmother did at the fine complexions and finer teeth of the Irish.

Not a bad few weeks for an 85-year old — except that it’s a few days. The programme for each day may not begin until 12 noon, which should allow a lie-in, but because she’s the Queen of England lie-ins aren’t part of the job spec. Those few early hours are the start of the working day, with correspondence and boxes of parliamentary material to be dealt with.