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Prince Charles meets Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams

(FRANKS..)


Prince Charles has met Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams at the start of his four-day visit to Ireland.
Mr Adams was among a number of politicians to greet the prince at a reception at National University of Ireland Galway.
It was the first meeting in the Republic of Ireland between Sinn Féin's leadership and a Royal Family member.
Mr Adams and his colleague Martin McGuinness also had a private meeting with Prince Charles.
That meeting took place after the handshake and was in a private room. It lasted between 15 and 20 minutes.
Afterwards, Mr Adams said: "We did discuss the need for the entire process to move forward, particularly in regard to those who have suffered, those who have been bereaved.
He said the meeting "was a big thing for him to do and a big thing for us to do.
"We have a cause to represent and a future to carve out and that's what it's all about."


The Royal couple watch Irish dancers after arriving at the university
However, not everyone welcomed the meeting and the prince's visit.
As Mr Adams was meeting the prince, one of his party's MP's, Paul Maskey, was attending a protest over Army shootings in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast in the early 1970s.
A protest involving about 40 people was held in Londonderry opposing it. It included some relatives of those who were killed on Bloody Sunday.
John Teggart's father, Danny, was one of 10 people killed by soldiers in Ballymurphy, west Belfast, in 1971.
"Prince Charles represents the Parachute Regiment who, for many years, murdered innocent civilians in Belfast, including my father," he said.
"I am totally opposed to him coming to Belfast and to the north in general."


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Media caption Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams: "It was a good meeting"

'Extraordinary kindness'

In a speech at the university, Prince Charles paid tribute to the "magic about Ireland that is totally unique".
"Having first had the great joy of coming to Ireland 20 years ago now, for the first time in 1995, then again in 2002, each time I have been so overwhelmed and so deeply touched by the extraordinary kindness, the welcome, the enthusiasm and indeed the fun of being in Ireland," the prince said.
He said of the Irish people: "You raise our spirits in so many ways."
He also joked that he was "a little too old to be able to learn some of the steps from the Irish dancing routine" performed for the Royal couple after their arrival.


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Media caption Speaking in Galway, the Prince of Wales has said that he is greatly looking forward to his "all-too-short visit"
In 2012, Sinn Féin's deputy leader Martin McGuinness met the Queen in Belfast in his role as Northern Ireland's deputy first minister.
The handshake between the Queen and the former IRA commander, at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, was considered historic.
However, he was not the first party member to meet British royalty.
In May 2011, Michael Browne, the Sinn Féin mayor of Cashel shook hands with the Queen in County Tipperary.


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Media caption The Queen shook hands with former IRA commander Martin McGuinness.
The meeting had not been approved by the Sinn Féin leadership.
During his own trip Charles, joined by the Duchess of Cornwall, will visit the village of Mullaghmore in County Sligo - where his great-uncle, Earl Mountbatten, was killed by an IRA bomb in 1979.




Analysis: Peter Hunt, royal correspondent

When the Queen shook hands with Martin McGuinness it was a historic moment for the relationship between Britain and Ireland.
The two countries' deep, once troubled, history passed another striking milestone when the Queen's eldest son - who is colonel-in-chief of the Parachute Regiment - met Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Féin, who has always denied being a member of the IRA.
Republicans, now, are talking about reconciliation and healing.
Thirty years ago, when Prince Charles first came to Ireland, they were demanding he apologise for the killing by paratroopers of 14 civilians on Bloody Sunday.
This week's visit to the Republic of Ireland will have political resonance and personal significance for Prince Charles. He'll travel to where Lord Mountbatten was killed by the IRA in 1979.
At the time of his great uncle's murder the prince wrote that he had lost someone "infinitely special" in his life.

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