Retired Canadian journalists Cyril Fox and Carl Mollins, whose careers included years based in London, England, with Reuters news service, assert that London-based Queen Elizabeth deserves an international award as she approaches her 50th year in office next year.
Surely, they say, Her Maj deserves award of the annual Nobel Peace Prize for her promotion of peace between Ireland and England on her May 17-20 visit to Ireland—90 years after the Anglo-Irish Treaty, while creating the independent Irish Free State, failed to erase hostility, even acts of terrorism, ever since.
The warmth of the Queen’s actions and words on her visit , virtually apologetic at times, widely prompted conclusions that she may well have helped erase the decades of conflict in manner and physical combat on both sides of the Irish Sea.
As the U.K. Guardian newspaper put it: “The Queen offered Ireland the nearest the royal family has ever come to an apology for Britain's actions in the tortured relations between the two countries.”
As she said in a Dublin speech to citizens of both the northern and southern Irish communities:
"It is a sad and regrettable reality that through history our islands have experienced more than their fair share of heartache, turbulence and loss . . . with the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we wish had been done differently, or not at all."
Queen gives Ireland closest royals have come to apology for Britain's actions
Irish eyes are smiling: show of respect turns Queen into runaway favourite
