Braille good message by 7-yr-old Jack
Charles tickled by salmon...from trader who made Queen smile
PRINCE Charles found somefin to laugh about in Cork yesterday – just as his mother did seven years ago.
The heir to the British throne came face-to-face with the man who made Queen Elizabeth chuckle in 2011.
Only this time fishmonger Pat O’connell tickled his royal visitor with a salmon, not a monkfish, at the city’s English Market.
Prince Charles said: “When I told the Queen we were going to be visiting Cork she said, ‘You must go to the English Market, you will love it’.”
His wife Camilla added a flash of colour in a knee-length teal coat, floral turquoise summer dress and nude kitten heels perfect for the long day on her feet. Sporting her trademark loose blonde curls and pearl jewellery, she drew compliments from royal admirers.
But her husband enjoyed high praise too. Margot Ann Murphy, at the Roughty Foodie stall, instantly fell for the prince.
She said: “I said to him, ‘You are such a good-looking man’. He was thrilled. And Camilla had a smile from ear to ear, sure she got him – she was the cat that got the cream.”
The Rebel City had rolled out the red carpet and extended a right royal welcome to the couple. A highlight of the visit was seeing puppies at the National Guide Dog Training Centre.
A tricolour and Union Flag fluttered above the City Hall and crowds lined the streets as royal cars arrived in town.
A lottery chose which local schools got to welcome them from behind a barrier on Grand Parade. Katelyn O’sullivan shook the prince’s hand.
The excited pupil from St Patrick’s Girl’s National School, Gardiner’s Hill, said: “I’ll never wash my hands again.”
Tanaiste and Cork South Central TD Simon Coveney also welcomed Prince Charles and Camilla to the City Hall. And he told how his 99-year-old grandmother Geraldine Browne was one of the oldest guests and spoke of the long and often fraught history between Ireland and England.
But the prince said the future is brighter. He added: “Today, we are not just neighbours, but old friends who, tragically, have travelled a troubled road.”
Meanwhile, Prince Charles took a step back in time when he was taken around a recreated famine hut.
And he became the first British royal to board an Irish naval vessel – the William Butler Yeats – when he visited the National Maritime College HQ at Haulbowline, Co Cork. THE mother of a boy who gave Camilla a card in Braille said she was “delighted” after learning she had never received a card like it before.
Jack O Mahoney, seven, from Cork, wrote the card for the visit to The Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind training centre.
He said: “I wrote, ‘To your Royal Highness, thank you for coming and visiting the Irish Guide Dogs, best wishes, Jack O Mahoney.”
And Jack’s mother Aisling was approached by the royal’s secretary who asked her for her address to send a thank you letter.
Ms O Mahoney said: “It’s such a nice atmosphere and she seems really relaxed when she’s had such a long day.
“She’s very warm and took a real interest in Jack. It was a lovely touch, we were delighted.”