Royals confirm Burren visit

Britain’s Prince Charles and his wife Camilla will visit the Burren during their upcoming visit to the Republic and Northern Ireland later this month.

The couple will attend an event at NUI Galway on 19 May, after which Prince Charles will visit the Marine Institute and the Burren.

A private dinner with President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina will also take place.

The Prince and Duchess of Cornwall will travel to Sligo on 20 May, where they will visit the grave of WB Yeats.

They will also visit Mullaghmore where the prince’s great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten was killed in an IRA bomb attack in 1979.

Prince Charles was in Northern Ireland last year and in 2013. He has only been south of the border on official visits twice – in 1995 and in 2002.

Garda Chief Superintendent, John Kerin, revealed earlier this week that he was preparing for the possibility that the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall could be in Clare later this month, as part of their first joint official visit to Ireland.

The British royals will be in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland from Tuesday, May 19 to Friday, May 22.

Clarence House, the couple’s London residence, announced the visit last week but a spokesperson at Buckingham Palace told The Clare Champion earlier this week that details of the couple’s exact itinerary would not be revealed until closer to the time.

Details of their itinerary were confirmed by Clarence House on Friday afternoon.

Prince Charles’s first visit to Ireland was in 1995 when he visited Dublin. He returned on an official visit on February 14 and 15, 2002. On that occasion, he was due to visit the Burren but this was abandoned when his trip was cut short after the death of his aunt, Princess Margaret.

The Prince has a strong interest in the environment and farming, which explains the inclusion of the Burren in his itinernary.

At a meeting with local representatives in North Clare earlier this week, Chief Superintendent Kerin indicated that gardaí are preparing for the possible arrival here of the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall and separately the Chinese vice premier.

“They may land in Shannon and we will know in the next couple of days exactly what is happening but if they are, there will have to be substantial police operations put in place to safeguard them,” he stated.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Charlie Flanagan, welcomed the intention of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall to visit Ireland.

“Following the reciprocal State visits of recent years, this visit to Ireland will represent a further expression of the warm and friendly relations which now exist between us,” he stated.