Northern Ireland diplomat speaks for first time about escorting King Charles on historic Germany visit

A top diplomat from Northern Ireland has spoken of her pride at leading the team that organised King Charles’ first overseas visit as UK monarch.

Omagh-born Jill Gallard is the UK’s ambassador to Germany and escorted the Royal party for their historic three-day visit earlier this year.

Speaking for the first time about her joy over supporting King Charles’ first international visit following the Queen’s death, high-flying Jill said: “To be the first ambassador to accompany the new King abroad was such a privilege and real career highlight. I actually met him on my first overseas posting when I was based at the British Embassy in Madrid and oversaw his visit to Seville in 1995.

“On my first weekend after starting work as British ambassador to Germany in November 2020, he visited for 24 hours to mark Remembrance Day. He does have a great memory for faces and my friends and family were having a good giggle about him making me laugh after he stepped off the plane.”

Jill added: “We had not anticipated the scale of numbers of people who turned out on the streets to greet the King and Queen, although we knew, of course, there would be huge interest.

“People are still talking to me about the standing ovation the King received after his speech at the German parliament, nearly half of which he did in German. The front page of Der Bild was ‘Cool King’.

“I think it shows the strength of UK-German relations and the deep ties that both nations share that the King and Queen were received so warmly.

“The UK and Germany continue to work closely as friends and partners in many areas including economic and security policy, trade, education, science and culture. It was an absolute privilege for our team to support such a historic visit.”

Mum-of-two Jill, 55, relocated to Co Antrim when she was two. She joined the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in 1991 and has previously served as the UK’s Ambassador to Portugal, as well as working in Brussels, Madrid and Prague during her diplomatic career.

Jill and her team have just supported a visit by the UK’s Minister for Europe Leo Docherty to sign a new Bavarian-British partnership declaration in Munich. More than one third of total British investment in Germany comes to Bavaria – nearly £25billion.

The news comes as Belfast this weekSEP12&13 hosted the Northern Ireland Investment Summit – with 200 investors and businesses from around the globe attending.

Germany is one of the top countries for investing in Northern Ireland – with £1.5billion of inward investment stock at the end of 2021.

And Jill says King Charles and Queen Camilla’s visit earlier this year helped boost the UK’s relationship with Germany.

She recalled: “I’ll never forget speaking to a German gentleman in the crowd waving a Union Jack on day two in Berlin, who had met Her Late Majesty The Queen on her last state visit in 2015. He told me he was determined to be there because the Queen had shaken his hand.

“The next day, I spotted him in the front row at the event in Hamburg and we arranged for him to shake the King’s hand. He wrote me the most lovely letter saying it had been ‘truly worth every hour of waiting and every drop of rain in Hamburg’. He closed his letter with the words from the famous Vera Lynn song ‘We’ll Meet Again’ which conclude with ‘I know we’ll meet again some sunny day’. For me, that was symbolic of the affinity the German people have for the King and the Royal family.”

Jill says her family back in Northern Ireland were gobsmacked to see TV footage of her escorting the new King.

She said: “My phone was out of control because my cousins and family were all watching it live on TV. I hadn’t realised me greeting the King and Queen off the plane was being broadcast live and it pushed my phone into meltdown. When I finally got a chance to go through my personal phone messages three days later, there were literally hundreds of messages from family and friends.”

Jill believes her upbringing during the Troubles may have helped her make a success of her career in diplomacy.

As Northern Ireland commemorates the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement, Jill believes the Northern Ireland investment summit is a sign of how peace is bringing new prosperity.

The summit is part of efforts to support the Prime Minister’s commitment to grow the economy, turn the UK into a tech and science superpower, and make us the best place in Europe to invest.

The UK is already the top destination on the continent for greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI) and the UK is only the third country in the world to have a $1 trillion tech sector.

Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and Levelling-Up secretary Michael Gove were in Belfast to address investors from the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific.

The summit aims to build on new opportunities the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak secured by negotiating the Windsor Framework.

Berlin-based Jill’s background has helped her explain the need for changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol in the run-up to the Windsor Agreement following the UK’s decision to leave the EU.

She continued: “People are intrigued by my Northern Ireland background because I don’t think I’m what they expected of a British ambassador. I think they expect it to be a man with an English accent, quite frankly.

“I get the sense it’s given me a certain authority and credibility when I’ve been lobbying on changes we needed to make the Northern Ireland Protocol work. I’ve used the example of trying to send a parcel from the UK mainland to my mum in Northern Ireland and seeing on the website ‘this is an international delivery – we don’t do this anymore’.

“The fact I can give lots of real-life examples of how it’s affected me and my family and friends, it’s maybe helped the German public understand the issues a bit more.”

Jill’s thrilled Belfast is also hosting the One Young World Summit for a new generation of young leaders from over 190 countries on October 2-5. They will be joined by activist Sir Bob Geldof, former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, ex-footballer Didier Drogba and Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus.

Jill said: “Growing up in Northern Ireland during the worst years of the Troubles, definitely gave me a desire to see more dialogue, less conflict. My parents wanted to protect me and did not let me see the news until I was at secondary school. I was initially pretty oblivious to what was happening just 10 miles away in Belfast - but not totally. I’ve lost friends to terrorism.

“When I was young, nobody visited Belfast because of the Troubles and something like playing host to the One Young World Summit would have been unimaginable.

“It underlines how the Belfast Good Friday Agreement has radically transformed Northern Ireland for the better by bringing peace. I hope the guests are inspired by how Northern Ireland has moved on and can use our story to achieve similar results healing division around the world.

“My sons are aged 15 and 13 and they can’t quite believe that I grew up in an era where it was totally normal when you were going into Belfast city centre shops that you just had to show your bag in case there was a bomb in it.

“I tell them about when I was 17 and first started driving, there was no problem with drink driving because you knew that wherever you went you were going to get stopped by the police and asked for ID.

“They think I’m ancient anyway, but I think they find it hard to fathom that that is what Northern Ireland used to be like.

“They just know Northern Ireland as a kind of peaceful, beautiful place where they visit granny and grandpa’s big garden and they can’t believe it was ever dangerous.”