Communities unite for Queen's visit

Protestant and Catholics from a Northern Ireland town devastated by an IRA bombing have shown their unity by joining forces to host a Diamond Jubilee visit by the Queen.

Clergy from both communities marked the Queen's 60-year reign by staging events in Enniskillen - where an explosion in 1987 killed 11 people on Remembrance Day.

In an Anglican Cathedral a service of thanksgiving for the Diamond Jubilee was staged while a few metres across the street the Queen made history by visiting a Roman Catholic church for the first time in either Northern Ireland or the Republic.

The move was an advancement in Anglo-Irish relations which will take a huge step forward when the Queen shakes hands with former IRA commander Martin McGuinness in Belfast.

Speaking about the planned meeting with the Queen, Mr McGuinness, Stormont's deputy first minister, has said: "This is about stretching-out the hand of peace and reconciliation to Queen Elizabeth who represents hundreds of thousands of unionists in the north."

Canon Peter O'Reilly, from St Michael's Roman Catholic Church, and the Very Rev Kenny Hall, Dean of St Macartin's Cathedral, co-operated to deliver the historic cross-community event at their neighbouring churches.

Canon O'Reilly said: "My reading of the significance of today is that it is an expression of the unity that there is in this place - a Fermanagh welcome, a gracious Queen, a lovely lady."

The Rt Rev Hall said: "We have worked together to make this a success. And what we are really sending out is a message that we really are one community."

In his thanksgiving service sermon the Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Rev Alan Harper, praised the Queen's groundbreaking visit to the Republic of Ireland last year, which has done much to build bridges on both sides of the Irish border.

Her conciliatory words and gestures had allowed many to throw off the "shackles" that had been loosening since 1998's Good Friday Agreement, and to "positively" be themselves, he said.

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Families Of IRA Dead 'Back Queen Meeting'

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams says the families of IRA members killed during the Troubles broadly support plans for Martin McGuinness to meet the Queen.

The former leader of the IRA - now deputy first minister - will shake the Queen's hand at an event in Belfast on Wednesday .

The Queen has never met a senior figure from the now-defunct IRA - which killed her cousin Lord Mountbatten in 1979 - or its political wing Sinn Fein.

"I'm touched by the way the families of IRA patriot dead have largely responded in a very understanding and positive way to this," Mr Adams told Sky News' Murnaghan programme.

"We're Irish republicans, we're against a monarchy of any kind, but we do respect our unionist neighbours and their view and their sense of identity on these issues and that's why we took this decision.

"The reason why it is a big step is because many people, including some of my family, members suffered dreadfully - one was killed - at the hands of British Crown forces."

Mr McGuinness turned down an invitation to meet the Queen during her visit to Ireland last year.

On Friday, Sinn Fein decided to sanction the meeting, which would have seemed inconceivable a generation ago.

Unionist Lord Trimble, former first minister of Northern Ireland, said the meeting had been "inevitable".

"I'm not surprised that it's happening. I'm a little bit surprised at the fuss (Sinn Fein) are making about it. I'm sure they've known for ages that this was inevitable."

Mr Adams declined to say whether Mr McGuinness was likely to offer an apology to the Queen for the killing of Lord Mountbatten, saying: "Let's not be raking over the coals."

Some have suggested that the meeting with the Queen could pave the way for Sinn Fein MPs to take their seats in the House of Commons.

They do not sit in the UK parliament, because of the requirement to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen.

But Mr Adams dismissed the issue as a distraction, adding: "We're now increasingly governing ourselves in the north."

Anger at victims' forum appointment

A republican once described as one of the IRA's most wanted suspects in Britain has been chosen to sit on a new forum representing terrorist victims in Northern Ireland.

Ulster Unionists expressed outrage at the appointment of Eibhlin (Evelyn) Glenholmes.

In the mid-1980s Ms Glenholmes was at the centre of extradition proceedings and was eventually freed by the authorities in Dublin after a court ruled the warrants defective.

She eventually returned to Belfast at the time of the developing peace process and at one stage sat on Sinn Fein's ruling executive. She now works with a republican ex-prisoners project.

Ms Glenholmes was never convicted of any terrorist charges, but some unionists said that they oppose her appointment to the Victims and Survivors Commission - an advisory body - which is due to hold its first formal meeting in Belfast later this month. It has already held a two-day workshop in Co Donegal.

Other members of the commission are believed to include former members of the security forces, a woman who lost her legs in a 1972 IRA bombing and a Presbyterian minister.

Jim Allister, a hardline unionist member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said: "I'm utterly disgusted. It's a monstrous appointment. It is a gross insult to the innocent victims."

Tom Elliott, a former Ulster Unionist Party leader, said: "Clearly someone with this sort of chequered past, who does not seem to have any remorse for what she has done, is symptomatic of the difficulties we have here. It is a retrograde step."