Helicopters droned overhead, police officers swamped the streets and grief hung in the air but King Charles’s visit to Northern Ireland did not feel like a rerun of the Troubles. Quite the opposite.
The monarch’s foray across the Irish Sea on Tuesday turned the clock back to a more recent era when reconciliation between unionists and nationalists, and Ireland and Britain, seemed strong, even inevitable.
The sun shone, leaders across the political divide found common ground, and for a few hours it felt like the giddy period a decade ago when the royal family applied balm to wounds left by centuries of conflict, creating hope for a more harmonious future.
“If he does half as well as his mother did he’ll be brilliant,” said Jackie Graham, 78, as crowds gathered in Belfast to welcome the new monarch. Charles could revive the lost art of reconciliation, said Graham. “He’ll have to go at it. When his mother went down to the Free State the whole thing changed. I think Charlie could do that too.”
Crowds cheered and waved union jacks as Charles and Camilla, the Queen consort, arrived at Hillsborough Castle in County Down, and later at St Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast.
Nationalists and republicans whose allegiance lay elsewhere did not join in the cries of “God save the King”, but they too welcomed him, they too expressed condolences for the death of Queen Elizabeth, and they too seemed to hope royalty could once again resuscitate the spirit of the Good Friday agreement.
“I hope you and your family can take comfort from the appreciation and the warmth that have accompanied tributes to the Queen across these islands and indeed across the world,” Alex Maskey, Speaker of the Stormont assembly, told the King.
A familiar sentiment, by now, except in this case uttered by a former IRA internee and member of Sinn Féin, which during the Troubles defended lethal attacks on “crown forces” and Lord Louis Mountbatten, mentor to Prince Charles.
When Queen Elizabeth visited the Republic of Ireland in 2011 and won a rapturous response with gestures of reconciliation, Sinn Féin followed public sentiment. A year later Martin McGuinness shook her hand, and in 2015 Gerry Adams shook hands with Prince Charles. It was a high point in Irish-British relations.
“She showed how a small but significant gesture, a visit, a handshake, crossing the street, or speaking a few words of Irish, can make a huge difference in changing attitudes and building relationships,” said Maskey.
Others echoed the tributes, which amounted to an unspoken request: please do it again. Brexit has soured relations between nationalists and unionists, and Dublin and London, creating bitter political deadlock, and a yearning in some quarters for another round of feelgood royal alchemy.
Sinn Féin urged activists and supporters to not spoil the mood by gloating over the Queen’s death – an injunction largely heeded, and acknowledged by unionists who cheered the King.
“They have all been respectful and are saying the right things. That’s all you can ask,” said Iris Manson, 54, a Protestant, from Ballymena.
Ben McAuley, 22, said he had seen some nationalists gloating at the Queen’s death on Facebook, but overall was surprised. “I thought it would have been a lot worse, but it’s not been so bad. James McIlveen, 66, agreed: “The political reaction has been a positive one. One or two small incidents but generally quite good.”
A Belfast Telegraph editorial lauded Sinn Féin, the Social Democratic and Labour party and other nationalists for empathising with grief-stricken unionists in a rare outbreak of solidarity. “Our politicians reflected the best of us, and for that they deserve praise.”
The Brexit truce continued in St Anne’s Cathedral where the Irish taoiseach, Micheál Martin, literally sang from the same hymn sheet as Liz Truss and Ian Paisley, the Democratic Unionist MP, shook hands with Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister. After the service the King returned to London and the congregation scattered.
