To give a bit of background information to supplement the above, yes, this is the first visit that the Queen has made to the Republic, but I have been told by several racehorse trainers on a good number of occasions that the Queen has wanted to visit Ireland for ages - she has had a lot of 'private' invitations to visit stables and studs, not to mention race meetings. Obviously because of political difficulties she has not been able to do so up to now, but I would not be surprised that, if the State Visit is judged a success,she will indeed make future private visits in order to 'take up' all these invitations.
And yes, I do understand where EIIR and others who have posted in a similar tone are coming from, but at the end of the day I have 'come to terms with this' by taking on board that as the Queen herself was the victim of The Troubles in that Lord Mountbatten was assasinated in a terrorist attack but can find it in her heart to forgive, then I presume that I as a subject must move forward too in a spirit of reconciliation.
Incidentally, was it just me, but watching the news yesterday I thought that I saw one or two people introduced to HM in a line-up actually make small bows of acknowlegement?
Hope some of this helps,
Alex