Charles offers hand of peace to Sinn Fein leaders

King Charles has met with Sinn Fein leaders at a Belfast reception seven years after shaking hands with former Provisional IRA ­associate Gerry Adams.

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin. Picture: AFP

King Charles has met with Sinn Fein leaders at a Belfast reception seven years after famously shaking hands with former Provisional IRA ­associate Gerry Adams.

And he was told that handshake “shows that you are seized of the importance of reconciliation and are committed to playing your part in that”.

Charles and Camilla, the Queen Consort, were greeted ­enthusiastically by crowds outside Hillsborough Castle on Tuesday night (AEST).

Inside, the monarch met the Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Alex Maskey, who is a Sinn Fein member. A reception was also held with Irish leaders, including the nationalist First Minister designate Michelle O’Neill.

Mr Maskey told the King that both he and the Queen had undertaken simple acts that had helped the peace process in Northern ­Ireland.

In response the King said he would “seek the welfare of all ­inhabitants of Northern Ireland”.

Charles added: “My mother felt deeply, I know, the significance of the role she herself played in bringing together those whom history had separated, and in extending a hand to make possible the healing of long-held hurts.’’

King Charles was devastated when his great-uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten was murdered by the Provisional IRA off Mullaghmore, County Sligo, in 1979.

The IRA detonated a bomb that had been concealed on a small fishing boat, killing Lord Mountbatten as well as a cousin of the King, Nicholas Knatchbull, 14, a local 15-year-old, Paul Maxwell, and Lady Doreen Brabourne.

But the King put aside his personal feelings when he met Mr Adams in May 2015, shaking hands with him at the National University of Ireland in Galway.

The Queen helped soothe tensions between London and Dublin when she visited in 2011. She was the first monarch to go to Ireland since the country’s independence, having been unable to travel there earlier because of The Troubles. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement helped relationships between nat­ionalists and unionists, leading to the visit.

And then there was the famous Queen handshake in 2012. At the time, Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness was Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister. During the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in June 2012 there was an exhibition at the Lyric Theatre of portraits of victims of The Troubles. It was ­organised by Co-operation Ireland. Its chief executive, Peter Sheridan, told the Belfast Telegraph: “When the Queen came to Dublin the year before, Sinn Fein decided not to take part in it. The next opportunity was the Diamond Jubilee.”

Mr Sheridan said he knew the meeting of the Queen with McGuinness was going to be historic: “It was courageous on one hand for someone to reach out their hand, it was equally courageous for the person on the other side to take that hand.’’

Earlier this week Mr Maskey described the death of the Queen as a historic event: “I want to specifically recognise today that this is a sorrowful time for unionist colleagues in the chamber and all of those of a British and unionist identity.”