Royal visit to an ancient Ulster town with an ancient history

Weeks ago the News Letter, the world's oldest English language daily newspaper, celebrated its 285th birthday.

We have been reporting on events for most of what could be called modern Ulster history, the period from the end of the 1600s/start of the 1700s.

Yet this part of the world has a surviving building that stretches far further back than that - Carrickfergus Castle.

In fact, you would need to multiply the News Letter's lifespan by a factor of almost three, 850 years, to go back to that distant time in the 1170s.

When Irish republicans talk about 800 years of oppression they are referring to the Anglo-Norman invasions of the late 12th century.

Carrick became a stronghold in those years, and for a while in the centuries thereafter the Normans held most of the island of Ireland.

These events are so far back, and there has been so much population and cultural and political demographic change since then, that it is almost meaningless to talk of the Norman link as a British one.

Settlements like Carrickfergus were established hundreds of years before the Reformation, and any concept of Catholic and Protestant. Nonetheless, it was easier territory for the Normans, and later administrators such as Baron Chichester, to hold than places further to the west of Ireland. In the penultimate census of 2011, Carrickfergus had the highest percentage of people with a 'British only' identity in Northern Ireland.

Things such as identity have changed very much in recent decades in NI, let alone in recent centuries.Yesterday, the Baron of Carrickfergus, Prince William, visited Belfast and Carrick, his first time in Northern Ireland since he became heir to the throne.

It is perhaps surprising that the monarchy is so enduring in this 21st century of smart phones and casualness. And yet the transfer of the monarchy from Elizabeth to Charles III showed that it is.The future of that tradition will be decided by the generations of William and Kate, Princess of Wales, and below. The way in which they win people over suggests it is in safe hands.