Prince Philip was taken with the spiced beef while the Queen inquired about the olives
CORK MAY well have to write to Meath to ask for an exchange of nicknames after the Rebel County gave a right royal welcome to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip when they paid a short but highly successful visit to the city yesterday.
Gardaí estimated that about 30,000 people came into Cork city centre to witness the first visit to the city by a member of the British royal family since Queen Elizabeth’s great grandfather Edward VII came in 1903.
They were rewarded when tight security was relaxed just a little to allow the Queen go on an unscheduled walkabout.
Emerging from the English Market, Queen Elizabeth crossed a sun-splashed Grand Parade and made her way up to the corner of Washington Street, chatting with groups of teenagers including some with special needs, who had lined the street to catch a glimpse of her.
Of course, Cork earned its soubriquet as the Rebel County not, as some think, for the daring deeds of War of Independence guerrilla fighters such as Tom Barry and Liam Lynch but for its support in the 1490s for the Yorkist pretender to the British throne, Perkin Warbeck.
But yesterday, it appeared that the Queen was willing to overlook Cork’s mutinous indiscretions when she breezed into the English Market and put in a sterling 20-minute performance where she won over traders with her interest and informality.
Fishmonger Pat O’Connell spoke movingly of how proud his late mother Kay, who established the business in 1962, would have been on such a day before revealing how he unintentionally set Queen Elizabeth laughing merrily.
“I told her it’s almost 30 years to the day since I got married and that was the last day I was this nervous of a morning and she just laughed – she was very relaxed, extremely friendly with a good sense of humour – it’s the most exciting day we’ve had in the market.”
Tom Durcan presented Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip with a hamper of local produce from the vendors in the market and revealed that while neither of them commented on the local delicacies of tripe and drisheen, Prince Philip was very taken with the spiced beef.
“He was asking me about the spiced beef and how you cook it so I explained – I think they enjoyed the visit,” said Durcan whose eight-year-old nephew, John St Ledger, presented Prince Philip with a bound copy of Diarmuid and Donal O’Drisceoil’s history of the market.
The Lord Mayor of Cork, councillor Michael O’Connell, presented the Queen with a specially commissioned brooch by Cork silversmith Chris Carroll depicting Cork’s Butter Market and finished off with 18 carat gold, and garnets and diamonds to represent the Cork colours.
“I had met her in Dublin on Thursday night and her parting words to me then were as if she had been in Cork all her life – ‘I’ll see you in the market tomorrow’,” quipped O’Connell, adding that she really enjoyed the visit and the warm welcome accorded her in Cork.
Olive stall owner Toby Simmonds, who has lost his London accent after living for nearly 20 years in Cork, told how Queen Elizabeth and Prince
Philip were very taken with his wide selection of olives – including some unusual looking white
ones.
“She asked me did I grow my own olives so I told her we had tried but it didn’t work out too well and then she asked me about the white olives and I explained that they were actually buffalo mozzarella and she just commented on how cosmopolitan Cork was.”
Among the other traders who met Queen Elizabeth was ABC bread shop owner Liverpool-born Sheila Fitzpatrick whose great-great grandmother, Bridget Melia, left Crossmolina in Co Mayo as an Irish speaker and started a market stall in Liverpool.
“I was used to seeing her image on stamps and coins,” she said. “So it’s a bit surreal to see her in front of you but she was very gracious and warm and I was delighted to meet her. It was such a positive experience and a sign things have moved on as they should do and it’s wonderful.”