Huge security operation on streets of Dublin

Bedecked in dazzling Irish green, the Queen shared a smile with President of Ireland Mary McAleese on the first official Royal visit to the state in 100 years.

The historic trip – the first since Irish independence – took place amid the biggest security operation ever mounted in Dublin, with thousands of police and armed soldiers on patrol across the streets of the Irish capital.

A crowd of dissident republicans had to be held back by riot squads, but protesters were unable to disrupt the extraordinary occasion.

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A total of 21 people were arrested during several demonstrations, while a pipe bomb was discovered on a bus on the outskirts of Maynooth, 25 miles from Dublin.

But the carefully choreographed visit continued undisturbed, and the Queen bowed her head and laid a wreath at Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance in a hugely symbolic act of reconciliation.

The national anthem was played as the monarch stood beside President McAleese at the site where Ireland commemorates those who died resisting British rule.

Later, students and staff cheered and applauded at Trinity College as the Royal party arrived for a private viewing of the Book of Kells.

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Former Irish prime minister Brian Cowen, who formally invited the Queen last year, declared relations between Britain and Ireland have been transformed.

“The vast, vast majority of the people of Ireland wanted to see this day come,” he said.

But while history books will chronicle the meeting of the Queen and President McAleese on Irish soil as a momentous diplomatic occasion, for fashion-watchers it was the striking outfits which grabbed all the attention.

There was little surprise to see the Queen wearing the green of Ireland, while the Irish President was in eye-catching pink. Both changed into more sober colours for the wreath-laying ceremony.

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