Queen shakes hands, meets with ex-IRA guerrilla
Source: Agencies |
June 28, 2012, Thursday
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BRITAIN'S Queen Elizabeth shook the hand of former IRA guerrilla commander Martin McGuinness for the first time yesterday, drawing a line under a conflict that cost the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians, including that of her cousin.
The meeting with McGuinness, who is now the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, comes 14 years after the Irish Republican Army ended its war against British rule, and is one of the last big milestones in a peace process whose success has been studied worldwide.
The queen met McGuinness, Northern Ireland's Unionist first minister Peter Robinson and Irish President Michael D.Higgins for just under 10 minutes behind closed doors in a theater in a leafy suburb of Belfast cordoned off by hundreds of police.
McGuinness shook the gloved hand of the queen a second time as she left the theatre, this time in front of television cameras, but unlike other guests chose not to bow his head.
The queen's bright green outfit appeared to have been chosen with Ireland's national color in mind, and McGuinness wished a smiling monarch well in Irish, saying "Slan agus beannacht," which he told her means "Goodbye and God speed."
There has been scattered opposition to the gesture from dissident Irish militants and from some of the IRA's victims. But the vast majority of the province's politicians backed the meeting, the first between the queen and a top member of the IRA or its former political wing, Sinn Fein.
"Today is a huge event and it is, in a sense, the ultimate handshake," said John Reid, British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2001 to 2002.
The queen's cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was also Philip's uncle, was killed by the IRA in 1979 with three others, including his 14-year-old grandson, while they were on holiday in Ireland.
The meeting with McGuinness, who is now the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, comes 14 years after the Irish Republican Army ended its war against British rule, and is one of the last big milestones in a peace process whose success has been studied worldwide.
The queen met McGuinness, Northern Ireland's Unionist first minister Peter Robinson and Irish President Michael D.Higgins for just under 10 minutes behind closed doors in a theater in a leafy suburb of Belfast cordoned off by hundreds of police.
McGuinness shook the gloved hand of the queen a second time as she left the theatre, this time in front of television cameras, but unlike other guests chose not to bow his head.
The queen's bright green outfit appeared to have been chosen with Ireland's national color in mind, and McGuinness wished a smiling monarch well in Irish, saying "Slan agus beannacht," which he told her means "Goodbye and God speed."
There has been scattered opposition to the gesture from dissident Irish militants and from some of the IRA's victims. But the vast majority of the province's politicians backed the meeting, the first between the queen and a top member of the IRA or its former political wing, Sinn Fein.
"Today is a huge event and it is, in a sense, the ultimate handshake," said John Reid, British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2001 to 2002.
The queen's cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was also Philip's uncle, was killed by the IRA in 1979 with three others, including his 14-year-old grandson, while they were on holiday in Ireland.
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