QUEEN ELIZABETH’S first state visit to the republic is being planned for next year. In what a British government source described as one of the “last, great, historic visits of the Queen’s reign”, the ceremonial two-day tour to Ireland, is likely to take place after the general election, which must be held by May 2007.

No official announcement will be made in advance of the election in order to avoid making it a political issue. There are fears that Sinn Fein might campaign against such a visit.

A spokesman for the Irish embassy in London said: “The British and Irish governments are agreed in principle that such a visit should take place. The timing would depend on the political process in Northern Ireland: 2007 may be possible but no date has been pencilled in.”

A British government source said: “Consideration should not be seen only through the prism of Northern Ireland.”

There was now the will on both sides for a historic occasion to celebrate the “closeness of our two countries,” he said.

President Mary McAleese has long supported a royal visit. When McAleese and the queen attended ceremonies for the 25th anniversary of Co-operation Ireland, a peace-building charity, in London last June, she said she would welcome the first visit.

A spokesperson for the president last night said she had always supported plans for a visit but as of yet, there were no specific plans. McAleese said she believed Northern Ireland was still a block to any state trip planned for the republic.

The Irish government too said it had not been informed of any plans. The attendance of the British ambassador at the 1916 commemoration last weekend however, signalled a new closeness in British-Irish relations.

A senior British source said the proposed visit should be seen in the light of the Blair inheritance. “A state visit would be a feather in Tony Blair’s cap . . . While the great Gladstone failed to pacify Ireland, Blair will be able to stake a claim in history and wants to be in office when the milestone visit is achieved.”

George V, the Queen’s grandfather, was the last monarch to travel to Dublin in 1911, but Ireland was then part of Britain.

In 1996, the Queen told Mary Robinson, then president of Ireland, that one of her lifelong wishes was to go to the races in Ireland. No visit was possible through most of the 20th century because the royal family was top of the IRA’s death list. Lord Mountbatten, the Queen’s cousin, was murdered while on holiday in the republic in 1979.

The Queen is said to see the planned visit as a healing and reconciling event. She believes there is something “incomplete” in her reign without it.

It is believed the visit may contain echoes of Queen Victoria’s trip in 1849 when she visited Cobh, in Co Cork.

When the Good Friday Peace Agreement was signed in 1998, it was rumoured a visit would follow. Eight years on and it still has not happened, though there have been visits to Ireland by Prince Philip and Prince Charles.

Security for any visit from the Queen would be especially tight given the rioting by republicans in Dublin in February when a unionist parade attempted to march down O’Connell St.

Members of her household view an Irish state visit in the same category as the Queen’s trips to South Africa after the collapse of apartheid.

The Queen last week celebrated her 80th birthday over a four-day period, despite wanting a low-key affair.

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