It is as if we should be grateful to Sinn Fein, rather than the Queen

However, the seamless of the transition from Queen Elizabeth II to King Charles III has proved reassuring, made possible in large measure because of the devotion to our nation displayed by the new king.

His diligence in fulfilling his constitutional obligations over the past week has been remarkable as he has dashed from one part of his kingdom to another, giving as many ordinary people as possible a chance to meet both him and the Queen consort.

One could be forgiven for forgetting that this is a man in his eighth decade who has just lost his mother.

He has suspended the normal process of private grieving for the sake of duty.

For that we owe him an immense debt of gratitude.

Having had opportunity to pay tribute to Her Majesty the Queen in Green Park opposite Buckingham Palace on Saturday due to a long-standing engagement in England, I was struck by the similarity of the tributes there with those left at Hillsborough Castle just down the road from home.

Time and again I read the words duty and thank you appeared in both places.

Clearly people appreciated the fact that the late Queen embodied values which her son has displayed in abundance in the past week, service and a sense of duty to others — values which seem to be from a former age when one’s responsibilities were at least as important as one’s rights.

That said, if you were to watch BBC Northern Ireland’s coverage of the visit of the new king one could be forgiven for thinking that the people we should really be thankful to are Sinn Fein.

Maybe one should be grateful that republicans are no longer seeking to murder our head of state — they have shown in the past that they don’t have a problem with murdering septuagenarian members of the royal family — but the praise given for deciding not to do so at the moment has been somewhat excessive.

Not least because they continue to believe that there was ‘no alternative’ to the murder of Lord Mountbatten.