McAleese hails 2011 ‘mission to heal history’

THE Duke of Edinburgh travelled to Ireland in 2011 “on a mission to heal history”, former president Mary McAleese has said.

Belfast-born Mrs McAleese was the president of the Republic when Philip accompanied the Queen on the historic visit, the first by a British monarch to the country in 100 years.

It was seen as a momentous step on the path to reconciliation after the Good Friday Agreement.

Mrs McAleese said the Duke was not just there to support the Queen, but to further the cause of peace between the two islands.

She said: “You can understand that security was very high, concerns were high. So he was there, as she has described in the past as her rock, but he was also there as a character in his own right.

“A man who had come on a mission, as she had come, both of them had come on this mission in their own right to try and heal history, to ensure that for the future these two neighbouring islands would be characterised by good neighbourliness.

“He wasn’t just there as her company, if you like, her inevitable company, he was also there making a statement.”

Plans had been made for a meeting with Martin McGuinness, the former IRA man who became Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, but this was opposed by his party, Sinn Fein.

Although the pair met the following year, Mrs McAleese said Philip would have been perfectly happy to do so on the State Visit, despite the murder of his beloved uncle, Lord Mountbatten, by the IRA during the Troubles.

She said: “He was willing even then to meet people who have been so closely associated with the murder of a man who had meant so much to him, Lord Mountbatten.”

The royal couple felt a “duty” to bring about reconciliation between Britain and Ireland, Mrs McAleese said.

Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show on the BBC, she added: “They both gave me to understand that they really wanted to visit Ireland, they wanted it to be part of a process of reconciliation. They saw themselves as people who had a duty to do whatever they could, by way of bringing about that reconciliation between neighbours.”