Selfie-centred! Here’s me with the Queen
NOT so long ago he would probably have ended up in the Crumlin Road Gaol himself for his cheek.
Fortunately all this Belfast teenager received for trying to take a mischievous ‘selfie’ with the Queen was a look of admonishment from her clearly unimpressed bodyguards.
Others among the watching crowds also got in on the act, seemingly regarding the historic visit as little more than a chance to snap themselves and the 88-year-old monarch on their mobiles.
However, Her Majesty remained graciously calm and unruffled.
On the first full day of her three-day visit to Northern Ireland, she once again proved that with a smile and a handshake she could help soothe some of t he country’s painful memories.
Her guides around the prison – once a symbol of The Troubles – were none other than Northern Ireland’s First and Deputy First Ministers.
Democratic Unionist leader Peter Robinson was imprisoned several times during the 1980s for his involvement in protests against the Anglo Irish Agreement.
Sinn Fein veteran and former IRA commander Martin McGuinness was
‘Peace and reconciliation’
held in 1976 on a charge of IRA membership, which was later dropped.
Although he has met the Queen on three previous occasions since 2012, the sight of the pair touring the jail was still a startling demonstration of just how much Irish politics has changed in recent years. Afterwards Mr McGuinness described the visit as another ‘bold step’ by the monarch.
‘The vast bulk of our people appreciate the effort Queen Elizabeth is making to peace and the reconciliation process and I think many people will look at the visit to the Crumlin Road prison with a degree of astonishment,’ he said.
Later addressing the City Hall, the Queen said: ‘I know there are many challenges ahead and peace-making is not always an easy task. But you have come this far by turning the impossible into the possible.’
Later the Queen met the stars of hit fantasy series Game Of Thrones as she toured the Titanic studios where it is filmed. The HBO epic, which has millions of f ans worldwide, has brought £82million to the region – the equivalent of 900 full-time and 5,700 part-time jobs – and is the biggest television production in Europe.