Then Irish premier John Bruton said Ireland was “the last place” the prince should bring the royal yacht, the HMY Britannia, and warned it would paint an image of “opulence”. He said they appeared to have “little option but to proceed with the programme” unless there were security or political considerations. But Mr Bruton conveyed his concerns in a hand-written reply to Mr Murray, where he wondered if the arrival of the royal yacht in Galway would spark debate about the Treaty ports. “I think the symbolism of the royal yacht arriving into Galway Bay is not good,” he said, with ‘good’ replacing the crossed-out word ‘great’. In a separate file from 2003, permission was sought for the British Navy vessel the HMS Ark Royal to dock in Dublin.

Source: The Times December 29, 2025 00:11 UTC