The large, warm crowd at Belfast City Hall was a sign of goodwill to new king

The most reported scenes of the new king’s visit to Northern Ireland were at Hillsborough yesterday and at St Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast.

But perhaps the most striking moments actually happened in the centre of NI’s capital city, as the visiting party moved between the Co Down town most associated with royalty and a service at the cathedral.

As the vehicle carrying the man who has acceded to the throne, Charles III, and his Queen consort, Camilla, down the long boulevard that runs from Royal Belfast Academical Institution (Inst school) and the law courts, past City Hall, a huge crowd lined the entirety of the route.

Every year, indeed every month, there are gatherings at that location in the heart of the city, often hundreds of people strong. There have been occasional huge crowds, such as at the anti Anglo Irish Agreement rally in 1985 or the display of respect the day after the September 11 2001 attacks.

But this was a spontaneous display of goodwill to the new monarch on a sunny working day, just to see the passing convoy. The layout, in which the crowd was spread out along either side of the road as opposed to grouped together, is one that suits the location, and has barely been seen there since marching soldiers at the time of the world wars.

As in Scotland, there is much interest in and affection for the royal family in Northern Ireland, despite activist pressure to split from the rest of the UK, the nation state which has as its helm a king or queen.

It would be unwise to draw political conclusions from large public turnouts on such occasions — many enthusiastic bystanders might enjoy the spectacle but not in fact be monarchists or even have much of a political outlook.

Even so, it was striking yesterday to be reminded of how much public interest there is in the handover of the crown from a much loved Queen to her long-standing heir and eldest son, and in the new king’s tour of the four home nations of the United Kingdom.