Dublin’s my favourite city, Meghan tells fan during whistle-stop tour
THE DUKE and Duchess of Sussex wowed young and old at some of Dublin’s most famous landmarks on a whistle-stop tour of the Irish capital.
On a day full of warm encounters with Irish wellwishers, three-year-old Gaelic sports fan Walter Cullen played with Meghan’s hair during a visit to the home of the Gaelic Athletic Association at Croke Park while another young supporter tugged Harry’s beard.
Those playful exchanges at the famous stadium came ahead of a 25-minute walkabout in the grounds of Trinity College, where the royals chatted and laughed with enthusiastic crowds.
During the meet-and-greet on the university’s cobbled square, Meghan told one fan that Dublin was her favourite city.
Harry followed in the footsteps of his grandmother the Queen by making the symbolic visit to Croke Park.
The stadium is steeped in history and witnessed one of the most infamous incidents of Ireland’s War of Independence when British soldiers opened fire on a crowd of spectators in 1920, killing 14 people.
Dozens of children played Gaelic football and hurling as the couple watched. They walked hand-in-hand around the sprawling pitch as GAA representatives talked the couple through the rules of Gaelic games. They spoke to young children about their involvement in sport and what it meant to them playing at Croke Park.
The duke and duchess met President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina at the head of state’s official residence Aras an Uachtarain, the former British Viceregal lodge in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.
They rang a Peace Bell installed in the garden of the grand 18th century house in 2008 to mark the 10th anniversary of Northern Ireland’s Good Friday peace agreement and toured the grounds with the presidential couple and their two Bernese mountain dogs, Brod and Sioda.
Meghan, who along with Harry signed the visitors’ book at the Aras, wore a Roland Mouret dress for the presidential visit.