Ireland Royal Visit : Empty seats and Empty Dublin Streets
IRELAND ROYAL VISIT: EMPTY SEATS AND EMPTY DUBLIN STREETS
The dissident voices that spoke out against the English Queens visit to Ireland were drowned out in the general sycophancy of media coverage, both in England and Ireland, which accompanied the visit.
It is clear however that not all went as smoothly as loyal media pundits would have us believe. A high point of the visit was the Queens welcome by the GAA at Croke Park with much being made of the fact that the royal visitor was welcomed
on `hallowed ground' in terms of nationalist history. One of the more enduring memories of the visit however was the small party standing in the enormous `empty stadium'.
Moreover it has become apparent since that eight of the nine GAA counties of Ulster distanced themselves from the visit. Whether it was a boycott or not is unclear as some kind of diktat seems to have precluded comment from those who were absent.
Surprisingly however it fell to veteran English journalist Richard Ingrams to succinctly sum up the weeks events.
Ingrams former Editor of Private Eye and is now a weekly columnist on the Independent newspaper and no friend of `humbug'. His comments under the title `Emptied Streets give the lie to Anglo-Irish bonds' can be accessed here:
(voir le site)
emptied-streets-give-the-lie-to-angloirish-bonds-2287202.html
J B Moffatt (Mr)
Director of Information
Celtic League
21/05/11
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