The 17th of May 2011 was an extraordinary day. I had the great honour and privilege of welcoming Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth on her first visit to Ireland, the first state visit by a British monarch to an independent Ireland.

 

That moment of arrival at Casement Aerodrome, named in honour of Sir Roger Casement, the Irish patriot executed for treason, was charged with significance.

 

I reflected that almost 100 years had passed since King George V had disembarked in July 1911 in what was then called Kingstown – a port in my own constituency – on the last visit to Dublin by a British monarch. I thought of what had passed between those two visits, of what Sir Winston Churchill described as the “integrity of the quarrel” that has so often marked our relations...