Queen's visit

The Queen's recent historic visit to Ireland is as graphic a measure as one could wish of the transformed state of Anglo-Irish relations. The two countries' troubled history, combined with decades of terrorism, have precluded any such royal visit for a century.

Now, with peace and power-sharing in Northern Ireland, and the United Kingdom helping bail out the bankrupted Irish state, relations are probably friendlier than they have ever been.

Nevertheless, the Queen deserves credit for making the trip. The security operation may be unprecedented, but this remains a visit involving personal danger to her.

Dissident republican groups are a shadow of the former Provisional IRA and have not mounted an attack on the British mainland in almost a decade. Yet there have been fresh warnings from the security services and ministers last year raised the threat level to "substantial."

In Ireland, moreover, the threat is immediate. Despite the fact that groups like the "Real IRA" have no political and minimal popular support, they can and do kill. Already the Irish army has intercepted one "viable" bomb on a bus. The Queen's defiance of that risk, whatever the security blanket, shows courage.

Yet the response of ordinary Irish people to her visit is a measure of how far the extremists are out of touch with the popular mood. While a few express anger at the visit and about historical wrongs, most are glad of the improved relations symbolized by the Queen's arrival. Like her, they embrace the future - not the troubled past championed by a handful of republican die-hards.

- London Evening Standard