Queen Honours Dead Republicans in Historic Ireland Visit

Queen Elizabeth shakes hands with Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny (2nd L) as she and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, (R) prepare to board the royal jet at Cork airport, Ireland, on May 20, 2011. (Maxwells - Irish Government/AFP/Getty Images)

On the first day of an historic visit to Ireland, the Queen honoured the Irish killed in the battle for independence from Britain.

The first visit by a British monarch to the country since Ireland gained independence 90 years ago went ahead despite the discovery of a pipe bomb bound for Dublin only hours before.

Accompanied by intense security costing 30 million euros, the Queen’s visit is regarded as another significant process in reconciling centuries of rancour between the two nations and cementing the peace process in Northern Ireland.

According to the Guardian, the number of protesters on the first day of the visit only numbered in the hundreds, and the event was largely peaceful.

 UK Prime Minister David Cameron said: “One hundred years on from the last time a British monarch visited Ireland, I think there is a great sense of history and occasion.”

He added: “I think the real effect ... will be a marker that just as we are solving some of the problems there have been between us in the past, just as we are helping each other through these difficult economic times, now is a great moment for people in Britain and people in Ireland to remember what it is we share.”

Former prime minister Sir John Major said the Queen’s visit would “put a seal” on the relationship between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Sir John helped to establish the Northern Ireland peace process in the early 1990s.

“One thing you discover if you travel round the world is that the Queen has become iconic,” Sir John told the BBC.

“If you’re abroad and people talk about the Queen, they mean our Queen and I think the symbolism of her visiting Ireland - given the history of the past - will be seen as a very big event and an absolutely pivotal event in building an even better relationship in the future.”

On the first day of a four-day visit to Ireland, the Queen laid a wreath at the Garden of Remembrance, a memorial in central Dublin to the two centuries of Irish republican fighters. Deepening the sense of reconciliation was the fact that she was accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, whose uncle was killed by militant Irish nationalists in 1979.

Two thirds of the country’s police force were used in the security operation that shut down key roads in the city centre and wrapped the Queen in a ring of barricades that stretched for miles.