{"id":424996,"date":"2026-02-14T07:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T07:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/424996\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T07:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T07:30:07","slug":"presidents-first-overseas-trip-to-be-to-uk-before-summer-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/424996\/","title":{"rendered":"President\u2019s first overseas trip to be to UK before summer \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Catherine Connolly<\/a> is likely to make the first overseas trip of her presidency to Britain<\/a> before the summer.<\/p>\n

The trip will not be a full State visit but is likely to be structured around events with Irish communities, according to sources familiar with discussions about the plans.<\/p>\n

Arrangements have not yet been finalised but it is understood that the visit is likely to take place before the summer break.<\/p>\n

The President and senior officials have been in discussions about other potential foreign visits as she begins to roll out the plans for her presidency. Connolly reaches the milestone of 100 days in office next Thursday.<\/p>\n

She moved into \u00c1ras an Uachtar\u00e1in after Christmas, having spent two months in the Steward\u2019s Lodge<\/a> at Farmleigh as minor renovations were required after Michael D Higgins moved out on the evening before her inauguration.<\/p>\n

It is expected that the President will soon announce the members of her Council of State. Her spokesman said this week that she was \u201ccurrently considering\u201d potential appointments.<\/p>\n

Asked about her activities during the first 100 days, the \u00c1ras pointed to \u201ca particular focus\u201d on the Irish language, which included visits to Gaeltacht areas and Irish language groups.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Catherine Connolly touches upon Irish unity in first official visit to the NorthOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The president is working on \u201cTeanga na h\u00c9ireann \u2013 A Nation\u2019s Living Voice\u201d, an initiative which will run from June 2026 to June 2027, and will celebrate \u201cthe Irish language and coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the first Gaeltacht Commission in 1926\u2033, officials said. <\/p>\n

Asked how her promise to make Irish the working language of the \u00c1ras is progressing, a spokesman said the secretariat \u201cis also continuing to build Irish language capacity among its staff\u201d, through Irish classes and recruitment of Irish speakers.<\/p>\n

The \u00c1ras said the President had also sought to focus attention on \u201cthe serious challenges of climate change and the homelessness crisis\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe President has further sought, across her engagements, to particularly highlight and support the important role played by women across society as well as to draw attention to the continuing appalling levels of violence against women,\u201d the \u00c1ras said.<\/p>\n

Plans for the future include \u201cinitiatives giving voice to those with caring responsibilities in the community and to young people\u201d. <\/p>\n

It is understood that there have also been discussions at a high level about a State visit by King Charles<\/a> in the coming years, something about which the king is said to be enthusiastic. He has visited Ireland on a number of occasions while prince of Wales for both public events and private holidays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Catherine Connolly is likely to make the first overseas trip of her presidency to Britain before the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[156068,59,57,58,1328,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-424996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-catherine-connolly","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-greatbritain","12":"tag-king-charles","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}