President Mrs Mary McAleese attended the British Queen Mother's funeral in London today.
The funeral took place in Westminster Abbey in London. The gun carriage bearing her coffin was borne to the abbey from Westminster Hall accompanied by 128 pipers. Outside thousands of people queued since dawn to pay their respects.
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Queen Mother's funeral service today.
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Mrs McAleese said: "Like so many people who are reflecting back on her life today, there is a mixture of sadness at her passing but also of wonderment at a life that spanned a century.
"She was a manifestly very happy person; she exuded a great aura of happiness always even through the most difficult of times and I know that many people here in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and, indeed, in Ireland mourn her passing because with her, we know, goes the end of an era".
When the Queen Mother was born she was to face "two world wars, the aftermath of the Easter Rising and the amazing transformations which have taken place in the latter part of the century".
"These now allow us to enjoy the prospect of much better relationships between our two countries, part of which allows me to be here today to commemorate along with the people of the United Kingdom the passing of somebody who meant so much to so many people - an icon in many ways," Mrs McAleese said.
Officials estimated that about 200,000 people had passed the body of the Queen Mother, who died on March 30th aged 101. The funeral ends a week of ceremony, which on Friday saw up to 400,000 people line the streets of central London to watch the Queen Mother's coffin transported from the royal residence of St James's Palace to Westminister Hall.
After the funeral service, the Queen Mother's body was interred in a chapel at Windsor Castle, next to her husband, King George VI, who died in 1952.
AFP