‘The logistics were nightmarish’: first Irish visit by Prince Charles remembered

Twenty-seven years before Britain’s King Charles visited this island for the first time as monarch this week, one man played a leading role in his first official visit as Prince of Wales.

In 1995, Peter Mantle was then owner of Delphi Lodge, the Co Mayo fishing retreat that the then prince stayed in for two nights. Mantle remembers mostly the symbolic nature of the visit as the first to Ireland by a British royal in an official capacity since the foundation of the State.

He also recalls the watertight secrecy he had to maintain in advance, even having to move an American couple to another hotel with a fictional excuse of “matrimonial difficulties”.

“Not to worry, Peter,” said the husband in response, putting his arm around Mantle. “As you move on, things get better. This is my third wife.”

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Mantle recalls the prince as “intelligent” and “a good conversationalist, beyond mere platitudes”. The huge disruption caused by his everyday movements also stands out.

“He only came for a couple of days but it caused enormous turmoil in terms of preparation by lots of different people for just two nights. The logistics of it were nightmarish,” he says.

“We were left with this sense of ‘God, what an awful life the poor guy has.’ He constantly has to work and anything he wants to do in his own time really is virtually impossible because it involves so many other people redeploying to protect him or take care of him.”

Mantle suspects the prince chose Delphi because of his relations, John Brabourne and his wife Patricia, daughter of Earl Mountbatten, the prince’s godfather and a man he considered to be “the grandfather I never had”.

Lord and Lady Brabourne had owned Aasleagh Lodge near Delphi but had to sell up after the IRA bombed Mountbatten’s boat off Mullaghmore in Co Sligo in 1979, killing Mountbatten, Brabourne’s mother, the couple’s son Nicholas and a local 15-year-old boy, Paul Maxwell. The couple and Nicholas’s twin Timothy survived the blast but all three were badly injured.

“All of the Brabournes would have been jumping up and down at the chance to go back in a safe manner. They were very, very heartbroken to have to leave in the wake of the bomb and so I am guessing they put Charles up to it in terms of location,” says Mantle.

He described it as a “terrific voyage of reminiscence” for the Brabournes as they caught up with people they knew locally from their pre-1979 visits.

Even though the 1995 visit came between the two IRA ceasefires, concerns remained.

“Security considerations were paramount, despite the peace process,” says Mantle.

The fact that Delphi valley could be easily sealed off made the location attractive. The prince used the secure valley to paint landscapes in the Connemara surroundings and to fish.

“I think he was genuinely enthusiastic about coming to Ireland and in particular coming to the wild bit of Ireland,” he says.

“Then there was the Mountbatten connection on top of that, where he would presumably have heard from the Mountbatten and Brabourne families how completely fabulous the west of Ireland was. That must have inculcated some sort of affection or pre-affection for it.”

Mantle says the prince had a “genuine interest” in one of the big conservation issues in the west of Ireland at the time: the impact of salmon farms on wild fisheries such as Delphi’s.

He believes the monarch is unlikely to shed these strong convictions as monarch, including his environmental activism, though he will have “to articulate them perhaps more privately”.

“I don’t see him losing his faith, but I do see his method of communication as being a lot more subtle or behind the scenes in his little prime minister weekly meetings,” he said.

Mantle thinks the king will keep up regular visits to Ireland as king to fulfil an ambition to visit all 32 counties on the island, particularly if post-Brexit problems can be resolved.

“I don’t think he is gonna be hopping over for a holiday or anything like that,” he said.

“But it is entirely possible that, if the protocol issue can be sorted, and relations between the two can improve yet further, then I could easily see him attending big gatherings of state and associated with that little trips here and there to tick off the counties he hasn’t yet been to.”