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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