Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Still Ireland & the Queen

We continue to hear comment & reminiscence about the significance of the Queen’s recent visit to Ireland.

Prince William is quoted as having said in an interview with Robert Hardman for his new book Our Queen that ‘She was so excited about it & was really looking forward to it. It was quite sweet … this was like a big door opening up to her that had been locked for so long.’

And on Desert Island Discs veteran Royal photographer for The Sun, Arthur Edwards, settled on Danny Boy as his final selection, partly for intensely personal reasons but also because, he said, he had never seen the Queen so moved as by the joint performance of the song by childrens choirs from north & south of the Border.

Her Majesty’s enduring sense of Royal protocol & propriety was illustrated by another anecdote from that same Prince William interview, which told how his grandmother had made it plain that he had no choice over which uniform he should wear at The Wedding; that was dictated by his Royal role as Colonel of the Irish Guards