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All she did was cross the street but that small gesture by the Queen made an enormous contribution to community relations in Northern Ireland.
By walking from the Protestant cathedral to the Roman Catholic one in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Her Majesty set a standard for others to follow.
Viscount Brookeborough, Lord Lieutenant of County Fermanagh, said: “This, when she crossed the street, was a turning point for the people of the town and the county.”
“It seriously made it acceptable for both communities to go into each other’s churches,” he added.
It was no coincidence that this act of reconciliation took place in Enniskillen, scene of one of the worst IRA atrocities, the Poppy Day bombing.
The following day, Her Majesty would stretch even further, reaching out her hand to Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander turned deputy first minister.
Her historic state visit to the Republic of Ireland a year earlier – the first by a British monarch – had opened a new chapter in British-Irish relations.
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Lord Brookeborough said: “She went on that visit, she enjoyed it and people who thought they might not have appreciated it in the Republic did.
“One day on an aeroplane, somebody was sitting next to me and we were talking about the state visit and he said: ‘Previously she was their Queen. She’s now our Queen’.”
The island of Ireland has come a long way since former Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams was referring to Queen Elizabeth as “Mrs Windsor”.
Few imagined a day when Northern Ireland would have an Irish nationalist first minister-designate who was happy to send jubilee greetings to the Queen.
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“Many people will look towards her as their monarch and I think it’s really, really important then that I reflect that and acknowledge that her jubilee celebration is an important time for many, many people, not least for herself.
“I do also have to understand that whenever you have public office for 70 years, that’s a big, big achievement.”
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Lord Brookeborough is not just a Lord-in-waiting and Lord Lieutenant but a close friend of the Queen and admires her ability to build bridges.
He said: “When she meets somebody, she talks to them on a totally even level and she gets them to engage with her.
“To be honest, one of the reasons is that she’s not a terribly tall person so she doesn’t speak down to people.”
“She always has that twinkle in her eye and a little smile,” he added.
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