Cork remembers laughing Queen Elizabeth with fondness

It was the image that encapsulated the visit – not just to the English Market but to Cork – fishmonger Pat O’Connell laughing heartily and Queen Elizabeth looking into the middle distance, her usually reserved demeanour melting in a warm and engaging smile.

The sight of Queen Elizabeth enjoying a joke from the wise-cracking Cork fishmonger catapulted the queen’s visit to Cork around the world and established an image of Rebel Cork as the place where people were sure of a royal welcome.

Speaking to The Irish Times shortly after news of the queen’s death broke on Thursday afternoon, Pat O’Connell says he was saddened by the news as he reflected on her long reign and what he believes her visit to Cork achieved.

“It was the end of an era really – she dealt with 15 British prime ministers – she was the constant in English politics and English life for generations, but we have fond memories of her here. Her visit to Cork was really good for the English Market and for Cork and for the country.

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“She was at her most relaxed here in Cork and going out on the Grand Parade and meeting all the school children that gave a sense of how relaxed she felt here, and I think people saw the human touch, all the trappings of royalty vanished, and we saw the person behind the throne.”

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Looking back at the visit, O’Connell is cautious about suggesting Cork enjoyed a special relationship that day with Queen Elizabeth, then aged 85, but he does venture that she seemed to enjoy her time on Leeside more perhaps than the official engagements she undertook in Dublin.

“I think she would quite happily have lived a normal life or a life as normal as somebody in her position could and that’s why she loved Cork because of the reception she got, and she felt as normal as she could here – she got to meet people and I think she liked the informality of it,” he says

“In Cork and particularly in the English Market, people respected her and her position obviously, but at the same time Cork people are quite confident in themselves and their own character, confident enough to feel familiar and not to be overawed by her – that was an important part of the day here.”

Queen Elizabeth’s host on the day was then Labour Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr Mick O’Connell who recalls that he had met her in Dublin the previous night at a State banquet when he was formally introduced to her but even then, he saw signs that the Cork visit might be a more relaxed affair.

“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’,” says O’Connell, who presented the queen with a specially commissioned brooch by local silversmith Chris Carroll when she visited the city.

He says he was “genuinely sad” when he heard the news of the monarch’s passing. “We all knew that she hadn’t been well for some time but you’ld be hoping she would rally and go on for another bit,” he says.

His daughter Aileen told him the news when visited her in the afternoon. “‘Oh my god’, says I because the whole family in some sense had a little bit of a bond because back in the day, I asked her to come across the road in the Grand Parade to meet Aileen and my granddaughters.

“I introduced her to Aileen and Kate, who was seven, and Ava, who was two. Aileen was holding Ava in her arms, and I said ‘Ava, say hello to Her Majesty the Queen’ and Ava looked up and, Gospel truth, said ‘Mrs Queen, I have a very sore lip today’ and she showed the queen her little lip.

“It was a very light-hearted moment and it showed how she relaxed and comfortable she was – and we all bought into it,” he says. “Of course it was also a historic occasion – what it did not just for Cork but for the whole country in terms of reconciliation was just fantastic.”

For the former Lord Mayor, one of the perhaps most moving consequences of the visit was the number of letters he received at Cork City Hall from Corkonians all over the world who had watched events on TV and were hugely proud of their city and the welcome it afforded the Queen.

“I got hundreds of letters, both from Brits living here and from Cork people all over the world and especially the UK – ex-pats who had been living there for 50 years, telling me how they were crying, watching the Queen walking out of the Market and how proud they were of their city that day,” says O’Connell.

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The Queen Mother (then the Duchess of York) with her husband, King George VI (then the Duke of York), and their daughter Queen Elizabeth II at her christening in May 1926. Photograph : PA

Meanwhile Cork’s current Lord Mayor, Cllr Deirdre Forde extended her sympathies on behalf of the people of Cork to the British royal family and the British people on the death of the queen, whom she praised for “her selfless life of service and unwavering sense of duty.”

“Queen Elizabeth’s decision to make a state visit to Ireland, and Cork, was one of the most impactful and significant milestones in Anglo-Irish relations since the foundation of the state and a cherished and warm memory for many of us,” said Cllr Forde.

Back in the English Market, Pat O’Connell is in reflective mood about the queen’s visit, coming just over 90 years after the burning of Cork by Crown Forces during the War of Independence, and he views it as an important milestone in cementing the many ties that link the two neighbours.

“I always consider Cork people to be very practical and while we’re very conscious and proud of our history here and the people who sacrificed so much to make Ireland what it is today, we are warm and welcoming and prepared to allow bygones be bygones and that shone through that day.

“I, like most Cork people, am very proud of our country and I don’t see any reason why we would kowtow to any other nation, I think we are as good any other nation and I think that mutual respect has come to the fore and it was certainly evident that day.”

Respectful but at the same time not overly reverent as evident from his quip about an ugly monkfish staring up at the queen from his stall which he joked they had nicknamed “the mother-in-law fish”, he recalled just how his witticism elicited a smile and an image that went around the world.

“I was nervous because I was taking a gamble when I cracked the monkfish joke - I didn’t know the woman personally so it could easily have backfired, but I suppose I had enough belief in the Cork humour so I said I would take my chance and see where it went and thankfully it worked out well.”