Throughout the past 4 days, Queen Elizabeth has been visiting the Irish Republic - the first British monarch to have been to that part of the island for 100 years. The visit has been a considerable success, despite a couple of bombs planted by nationalist terrorists (safely destroyed), and streets being closed rather than thronged with people, and at enormous expense to a virtually bankrupt nation. Since King George V visited Dublin in 1911 much blood has been shed as the Irish struggled to free themselves from Britain, and at one point the Queen laid a wreath in the Garden of Remembrance in memory of those who died fighting for independence. Everyone - even Gerry Adams - recognisesthis as a positive step in normalising relations between the two countries, but should she have gone further and apologised for the British actions against the Irish freedom fighters - the Easter Rising, Croke Park, the Great Famine, Oliver Cromwell, the Tudor invasion, and so on back into the mists of time?

And if she did, should the Irish accept it?