Paul Hopkins: Our love/hate affair with Philip’s royals

Other than the late Prince Philip's greatest claim to fame being that he outlived nearly everyone who knew him, we are left with a two-dimensional portrait; coarse-tongued and short on temper. A man who told off-colour jokes and made politically incorrect remarks; an eccentric towards whom most felt passing affection.

To royalists, Philip was an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life, entwined with the sweeping changes of a turbulent 20th century; a life of contrast and contradiction, of service and solitude. A complex, clever, but internally restless man.

During his 70 years beside Elizabeth he redefined the strange role to which he had not been born but, it seemed, was just the right fit.

A great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria — he and Elizabeth were distant cousins — Philip was born on 10th June 1921, in Corfu, Greece, the nephew of King Constantine I of Greece and in the line of succession to the thrones of both Greece and Denmark. After the Greco-Turkish War, the Greek king was forced to abdicate and the family fled Greece by boat, with 18 month-old Prince Philip reportedly smuggled aboard an orange crate. From then, he was shuffled around Europe. Fast forward and, after serving in World War II, Philip married the future Queen in Westminster Abbey in 1947.

The rest we know, or think we know, or have caught up with by watching 'The Crown' on Netflix, although that series takes a lot of poetic licence in its portrayal of Philip. He was not, for example, caught up in the Profumo affair.

Other than feeling a tad sorry for an old dear who has lost her husband of seven decades, most of us this side of the Irish Sea are giving little thought to the death of Phil the Greek.

Ireland and the Crown have had an on-off relationship going back aeons, a relationship drenched in blood and drunk on the audacity of religious megalomania and misanthropy on both sides of the divide. Essentially though, a love/hate affair.

Officially, we were supposed to ignore the coronation of Elizabeth II. An event of supreme indifference to the citizens of De Valera's Ireland. Ambassador to London Frederick Boland attended but made clear he wasn't going to enjoy it, and the official Irish response to the affair was 'measured'.

Cardinal D'Alton, then Primate of Ireland, hoped Ireland would be "restored to its natural unity" during the reign of the new Queen.

Unofficially, of course, we loved it. Unofficially, we lapped it up; every detail, every epaulette and cummerbund, every title and crowned head.

At the core of ordinary Irish people's affection for Queen Elizabeth, a remarkable woman in many ways, is the Irish tradition of being interested in people, clan and family. In dynasty.

Royal watchers here have followed Elizabeth through many travails, personal and political, and identified with her as a wife and mother.

Our interest may well be fuelled by our lack of pageantry. The people who provided glamour back in the day were the Catholic Church. The religious processions of the 1950s were beautiful, exquisite displays but, apart from that and the visit of Princess Grace, there was a vacuum.

So, it was towards Buckingham Palace, Windsor, Sandringham and Balmoral that many turned for their glitz fix.

Three decades on, we Irish did not escape succumbing to Princess Diana, her beauty and innocent charm, long before we thought the Brits 'okay' after her mother-in-law's address at dinner in Dublin Castle in 2011.

We followed their family dramas, too. We knew that the Queen Mother loathed the Duchess of Windsor, we felt for Princess Margaret when she wasn't allowed to marry Captain Townsend, we recoiled when the IRA murdered Lord Mountbatten, and many wept unashamedly at news of Diana's death in that Paris car crash in 1997.

The high point of Ireland's relationship with Queen Elizabeth came with that royal visit of 2011. Once again, it was the human element that won out over political or cultural concerns — her seemingly genuine response, not to mention the cupla focal.

The death of the Duke of Edinburgh is the latest hurdle in what has been a trying few years for the British royals: Prince Andrew bowing out of royal duties in the wake of his defence of Jeffrey Epstein in that 'car crash' of a BBC interview, followed by Harry and Meghan stepping down for the bright lights of Hollywood, and that bombshell of an interview with Oprah.

Annus horribilis indeed, your majesty...

Paul Hopkiins' column appears every Tuesday in the paper.