A new era in Anglo-Irish relations was acknowledged yesterday, when Bertie Ahern became the first Irish Prime Minister to address both Houses of Parliament.

The event adds to the likelihood of an official visit by the Queen to the Republic of Ireland – the first by a British monarch since independence.

Putting behind him centuries of enmity, Mr Ahern called Tony Blair “a true friend of Ireland [who] has an honoured place in Irish hearts and in Irish history”.

Speaking in the Royal Gallery, he also praised Sir John Major for the “courageous early steps” he took in the peace process. Mr Blair lavished praise on Mr Ahern, who is 12 days away from a general election.

Mr Blair said: “The man we are honouring this afternoon has been at the heart of the search for a political settlement in Northern Ireland for more than a decade.” Mr Ahern said that, after centuries characterised by conflict and resistance, this must be “the last generation to feel the pain and anger of old quarrels”. He looked ahead to a “partnership of peace” between Britain and Ireland, which he said would bring economic prosperity.

He told MPs and peers: “Ireland’s hour has come. It came not as victory or defeat, but as a shared future for all. Solidarity has made us stronger. Reconciliation has brought us closer. Ireland’s hour has come: a time of peace, of prosperity, of old values and new beginnings. This is the great lesson and the great gift of Irish history. This is what Ireland can give to the world.”

Mr Ahern was visiting London a week after former foes in the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein took up ministerial positions in a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. Referring to his meeting last week with Ian Paisley, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, at the site of the 1690 Battle of the Boyne, Mr Ahern called it “an act full of the symbolism of new days of hope and promise in Ireland.

“It is surely a miracle of our age that the undisputed leader of Ulster Unionism can meet with the leader of the Irish Government, on that battlefield, in a spirit of friendship and mutual respect.”

He emphasised that those who were killed during the Troubles should not be forgotten, nor should a veil be drawn over the two islands’ blood-stained history. But he added: “Now let us consign arguments over the past to the annals of the past as we make history, instead of being doomed to repeat it. Violence is part of our shared past that lasted too long. Now we close the chapter, we move on, and it will remain there as it was written.”

The 1998 Good Friday agreement had “delivered peace and promise to Ireland by accommodating the rights, the interests and the legitimate aspirations of all”, Mr Ahern said. And he pledged: “As an Irish republican, it is my passionate hope that we will see the island of Ireland united in peace. But I will continue to oppose with equal determination any effort to impose unity through violence or the threat of violence.”

Looking back to the events of last week, Mr Ahern said: “May 8 in Belfast was a day when we witnessed events that will truly define our time and the next. Now at last the full genius and full potential of the Good Friday agreement will unfold in the interests of all the peoples of these islands.”

Mr Blair said that it was ten years since he had had the honour of addressing the Irish parliament in Dublin, the first British Prime Minister to do so. “In a curious way, Bertie and I symbolise the past – him from a staunch Irish republican background, me whose maternal grandfather was an Orangeman living in Donegal. Yet today we are friends and partners and close neighbours.

“Suddenly, in a few short years, our countries have shuffled off all the old and disagreeable sentiments and replaced them with affection founded on a modern and shared vision of these islands . . . At long last, both nations seem to have found comfort in a shared future. It would not have happened without Bertie Ahern.”

Hear ye

Since 1939 only 31 world leaders have addressed both Houses, including Bertie Ahern, Shimon Peres, Daniel Ortega, Boris Yeltsin, Jacques Chirac, John Howard, Haile Selassie, Nikita Khrushchev, Mikhail Gorbachev, Charles de Gaulle, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama

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