King Charles has “graciously accepted” an invitation to Ireland, President Catherine Connolly said yesterday following a meeting at Buckingham Palace.
Ms Connolly met the king as part of a three-day official visit to London and Leeds.
At the meeting, she invited Charles to make a state visit to Ireland, in what would be the second such visit by a British monarch since independence.
Charles’s late mother Queen Elizabeth II paid a state visit to Ireland in 2011.
Ms Connolly described her meeting with Charles, which lasted just under an hour, as “wonderful”.
“It was a very positive, warm meeting and it was a privilege to meet with King Charles,” she said.
“King Charles knows Ireland well and has been a positive voice for peace and reconciliation.
“In our discussion, we were mindful of the unique relationship as close neighbours and our intertwined history.
“We discussed many things, and actually, I had a lot in common with the king in relation to the environment and climate change.”
She said the “highlight” of the meeting was the invitation she extended to him to visit Ireland, adding: “The details will emerge in due course between the two governments.”
The visit from Charles is unlikely to take place this year due to Ireland hosting the EU presidency from July.
During her visit to London, Ms Connolly also addressed comments made by former taoiseach Bertie Ahern on migrants, saying politicians “have to take responsibility for what they say”.
Asked about Mr Ahern’s comments where he singled out people arriving to Ireland from “the Congo” as well as “the next generation of Muslims”, the President said there were “two by-elections going on, and I will leave that to the politicians”.
However, she added: “On a general level, I think we all have to own our own words, particularly myself in my role, and other politicians, have to take responsibility for what they say.”
Mr Ahern is a statutory life member of the President’s Council of State as a former taoiseach.
Irish President Catherine Connolly shaking hands with the King (Jordan Pettitt/PA)
Addressing a reception at the Irish embassy in London last night, Ms Connolly said that Ireland “brings to all of our relationships the values we hold dear given our history” around neutrality and sovereignty.
“Ireland champions those values by defending international law,” she said.
“That is why Ireland speaks out in the face of injustice.
“That is why we will not be silent when international law is treated as optional by those with the power to simply ignore it when they choose.”
Ending her address, Ms Connolly said the two countries need to “use our voices in a world, a volatile world, to say that normalising war is never acceptable, normalising slaughter is never acceptable”.
She said: “We have to use our voices to reclaim our language, not just in the sense of reclaiming our Irish language and culture, but reclaiming our language so that language has meaning, and we can tell young people that we mean what we say.”
To be Irish in Britain in those years was to carry a weight that was not yours to carry
The President was speaking just hours after her sister, Dr Margaret Connolly, was seized by Israeli forces as part of an aid flotilla headed for Gaza.
She told the embassy gathering that for centuries the relationship between Ireland and Britain was “one of coloniser and colonised”.
“The decolonisation of Ireland, however, was not only about land and law. It was also about the decolonisation of our minds,” she said.
After struggling with a green‑tinted stage light and no glasses earlier in the day, she paused mid‑speech at the embassy, put on her spectacles and remarked, “I have lost the battle”.
The President also spoke about the impact that Troubles‑era bombings in England had on the Irish communities living there at the time. “Most of you and your families lived the consequences of the horrific bombings.
“To be Irish in Britain in those years was to carry a weight that was not yours to carry. People lost jobs. People were accused in the wrong,” she said.
She said that the Good Friday Agreement provided peace for the island, which she called a “living, breathing framework”, adding, it was “under pressure” during Brexit but Ireland “defended it”.
“We will continue to do so. Not because it is politically convenient, but because the alternative is unthinkable,” she said.
The official visit began earlier yesterday, with a visit to the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, west London, where she delivered an address and met those participating in an Irish language class.
Ms Connolly told the audience that historically immigration was “driven by economic factors” with large numbers of Irish arriving in “waves” to London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham.
“Unfortunately today as well, we have people leaving our shores for various reasons, some of them for lack of housing,” she said.