President Michael D Higgins has become the first Irish head of state to make an official visit to the UK.
Higgins will also meet the Queen and Prince Philip at Windsor Castle and address parliament during his trip, before flying home on Friday.
His trip comes as a reciprocal visit to the Queen’s official visit to Ireland in May 2011, where she symbolically laid a wreath for those that lost their lives fighting for Irish independence from Britain.
The relationship between the UK and Ireland has warmed significantly since the Good Friday Agreement, signed on 10 April 1998, where the IRA and UVF agreed to decommission weapons and work towards a peaceful resolution to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Ireland’s Deputy First Minister and former IRA commander Martin McGuinness will attend a banquet hosted by the Queen at Windsor Castle during the visit, demonstrating how previous enemies have changed their hard-line stances in the name of peace.
Higgins will be joined on the visit by Taoiseach, literally “chief”, Enda Kenny and Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore.
The Republic of Ireland gained independence from the UK in 1921 following a civil war and guerrilla campaign against British forces. However, British rule was maintained in Northern Ireland, with the partition of the island resulting in a bloody conflict that lasted more than 70 years.
