queen victoria trip to ireland

Rare Footage of Queen Victoria Shows the Monarch's Last Trip to Ireland

The film was just discovered in storage at the Museum of Modern Art.

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"I nearly fell off my chair because I'd never seen Victoria in close-up before," Bryony Dixon, a curator of the British Film Institute, who unearthed the film, said .

"Instead of a very still image like a posed photograph or a painting, we see her in movement," Dixon continued. "She smiles, very rare to see her smiling. She doesn't in any of the portraits. So it humanizes her, I think, for the first time."

The clip shows the Queen in 1900, just a year before she died, and in the video, she is being greeted by two young women, who curtsy to the monarch and present her with an over-flowing basket of flowers. Victoria appears to be wearing all black, as she did following the death of her husband, Prince Albert, in 1861, and is also carrying an umbrella , to shade her from the sun.

Watch it here:

While this new discovery was unexpected, there are certainly other planned celebrations of Queen Victoria's life in honor of the bicentenary of her birth. Notably, one exhibition centered around the Queen's life has already opened at Kensington Palace , and another is planned for later this summer at Buckingham Palace .

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Long-Lost Film Footage of Queen Victoria on Her Final Trip to Ireland Has Been Rediscovered

By michele debczak | may 28, 2019.

Queen Victoria's reign predated televised royal weddings and press conferences, but the British monarch did live long enough to see the advent of motion pictures. According to The Telegraph , the clip below, filmed one year before her death, is thought to be among the last footage ever recorded of the queen .

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City rediscovered the film in its archive of 68mm nitrate prints and negatives from early cinema history. The footage, captured during Queen Victoria's final trip to Ireland in 1900, shows a different side of the monarch than what she shared in her stoic portraits. She's wearing sunglasses and holding a parasol to protect herself from the sun, and when admirers come up to her, she greets them with a rare smile.

"In a moving image you get so much more, even something as brief as this, of the personality, of the presence of this woman," film curator Dave Kehr said in a video from MoMA.

Queen Victoria died in 1901, concluding what had been the longest reign of any British monarch at that point in history. Her great-great-granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II has since surpassed that achievement.

[h/t The Telegraph ]

‘Astonishing’ video footage of smiling ‘famine queen’ Victoria’s Dublin visit found

Film archivists are amazed at the quality of film showing victoria’s 1900 visit.

In 1939, the Museum of Modern Art acquired thirty-six reels of nitrate prints and negatives made in cinema’s first years. They have recently been restored, and includes rare footage of Queen Victoria's last visit in Ireland in 1900. Credit: MOMA

Rediscovered footage of Queen Victoria's last visit to Ireland in 1900 has been described as of "astonishing" clarity .

The minute and a half worth of film was found in an archive held by the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) earlier this year.

News reel footage of the time, shown on projectors in cinemas only, began in 1895 and Queen Victoria, then the most famous person in the world, was also the most filmed.

It shows a young girl presenting a bouquet of flowers to Britain's queen. The young girl was Victoria Arnott, named after the monarch, and who was the daughter of then owner and managing director of The Irish Times Sir John Arnott.

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It dates from April 7th, 1900 during the "children's day" celebrations in the Phoenix Park where 52,000 Irish schoolchildren, according to The Irish Times, turned up to greet the queen.

There is extant footage of Victoria’s visit to Ireland, her last before her death in January 1901 at the age of 81, but it is from much further back and of lower quality.

The latest footage was found by Bryony Dixon, the curator of the British Film Institute's collection of silent film.

She went to New York to review the footage that the company had with a view to including it in a curated film season at BFI Southbank to mark the bicentenary of Victoria’s birth.

She says it was shot on a 68mms camera of a type used by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company which was the high definition of its time and it is so good that it can still be shown on an IMAX screen.

“It hit me like a hammer blow when I saw it. It was astonishing and an incredibly good piece of film. The fact that we can see her face is extraordinary. The quality is fantastic even for now,” she said.

Ms Dixon said it was also significant in that it showed Queen Victoria up front, smiling and wear sunglasses - she was notoriously difficult to film as she always carried a parasol around with her.

The film gives an interesting insight into the Ireland at the time. Though derided by nationalists as the "famine queen", there were plenty of people in Ireland who saw themselves as royalists particularly in Dublin. As Todd Andrews, who was born in 1901, wrote of the city at the time of his birth: "Dublin was a British city and saw itself as one".

This was true too of The Irish Times which was a unionist and Protestant paper in the years before Irish independance, reflecting the politics of the Arnott family which bought the paper in 1873 and retained majority control of it until 1954.

The paper’s coverage of the children’s day was suitably unctious: “It is quite probably that her greeting by the children of Ireland in the Phoenix Park last Saturday gave much more pleasure to the venerable lady whom the majestic laureate of the Victorian era has crystalised for all time as the ideal mother, wife and queen.

“Her review of the children of the Emerald Isle, the rising generation of Irishmen and Irishwomen - was a spectacle which has no counterpart in this generation.”

Victoria Arnott's grandson Michael Johnson said he had heard the footage existed but was surprised at the quality of the imagery.

Victoria Arnott married one of the French family from Frenchpark, Co Roscommon and went by the rather grand title of Baroness de Freyne of Coolavin.

Mr Johnson said: “She was very much a person of her era. She was the most terrific snob. She used to refer to people as being “in trade” though she came from trade herself.

“My grandmother never talked about this! There’s a touch of irony here as my grandmother presented the flowers and not her identical twin, Mary. My theory being that was because Mary had a deformed hand which in those days was kept out of sight, but bear in mind that Queen Victoria’s grandson (Kaiser Bill) also had a withered hand.

More videos are available to watch on the BFI Player Victorian Film collection website .

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy is a news reporter with The Irish Times

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Queen Victoria's Royal visit to Dublin, Ireland, 4th April - 26th April, 1900

L'Estrange, Robert Augustus Henry (1900) Queen Victoria's Royal visit to Dublin, Ireland, 4th April - 26th April, 1900. [Image]

College Green (Irish: Faiche an Choláiste) is a three-sided plaza in the centre of Dublin. On its northern side is a building known today as the Bank of Ireland which until 1800 was Ireland's Parliament House. To its east stands Trinity College Dublin. To its south stands a series of 19th-century buildings that are mostly banks. Streets leading onto College Green are Dame Street to the west, Grafton Street to the south, and Westmoreland Street to the north. College Green has been used as an assembly point for major political rallies.

Now aged 80, Queen Victoria paid her last visit to Dublin, on what was nicknamed the "Boer War Tour" as army recruitment was down and new blood to fight the war in South Africa was needed. The Catholic hierarchy opposed the visit. However, the public was delighted by a general holiday, and trams were "crammed to suffocation" according to reports.

From April 4 to 26, Victoria, two daughters plus grandchildren visited schools and hospitals. The spectacular Phoenix Park military review on The Fifteen Acres was watched by 200,000 people, and the park deer added their own march past.

Entry from Queen Victoria's Diary

"We had a perfectly smooth crossing, without the slightest motion, & I slept the greater part of the time. Came up on deck for tea. The Fleet left us just outside Holyhead. — I felt quite sorry that all was over, & that this eventful visit which created so much interest & excitement, had, like everything in this world, come to an end, though I own I am very tired & long for rest & quiet. I can never forget the really wild enthusiasm & affectionate loyalty displayed by all in Ireland & shall ever retain a most grateful remembrance of this warm hearted & sympathetic people. Even when I used to go round the ground in my pony chair & the people outside caught sight of me, they would at once & cheer & sing "God save the Queen". — "Thursday 26th April 1900

Peacock Hotel on right , College Green, Trinity College Dublin, God Bless our Queen banner in background , National Assurance Company building. Statue of William of Orange (William III) on College Green, erected in 1701. It was badly damaged in an explosion in 1928, and removed in 1929.

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Queen Victoria's Visit to Killarney and Muckross House, August 1861

A dramatised account of Queen Victoria's visit can be heard here.

Queen Victoria (1819-1901) of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India, ascended the throne in 1837.

The Royal party stayed the night of Monday, 26 August, at Killarney House, home of the Earl of Kenmare. They then travelled on to Muckross, where they spent the following two nights. The Queen's visit to Killarney House was very much a state occasion. However, her stay at Muckross was a much more private affair. The local press reported that Her Majesty'had declared her intention of being "very quiet" while at Muckross.' (Kerry Evening Post, Wednesday 28 August, 1861 ) .

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was born in 1819 and married Queen Victoria in 1840. He died of typhoid in December 1861.

Albert Edward (1841-1910), Prince of Wales ascended the throne as Edward VII in January 1901 following the death of his mother Queen Victoria.

At 6.30 pm on the evening of Monday, 26 August, the Royal train arrived in Killarney from Dublin. The Royal party were then escorted to Killarney House, where a large dinner was held that evening. The next day the Queen embarked at Ross Castle for a day on the Lakes. Lunch was served at Glena Cottage. In the evening the party returned to Ross Quay, from where they were escorted back to Killarney House.

Queen Victoria spent the night of Monday 26 August, in this house, known as Killarney House. It was demolished during the 1870s.

Queen's Bedroom, Muckross House.

Muckross House, 1861, immediately prior to the visit of Queen Victoria.

Illustrated London News , 24 August, 1861.

At about 6.30pm that same evening, Tuesday 27 August, the Queen and her family set out for Muckross. They were accompanied by The Right Hon. Henry Arthur Herbert, Viscount Castlerosse (of the Kenmare family) and a troop of the Royal Dragoons. The Times described how Mr and Mrs Herbert received the Queen on the lawn at the door of Muckross House. A host of other ladies and gentlemen were also present and greeted the Queen enthusiastically. ( The Times , Friday 30 August, 1861).

Elaborate preparations had been carried out at Muckross for the Royal visit. Tapestries, mirrors, Persian carpets, silverware, musical instruments, linen, china and servants' uniforms, are all said to have been specially commissioned for the occasion. The curtains, which still hang in the Dining Room of Muckross House, were specially woven, probably in Paris, for the occasion.

The Queen's apartments at Muckross were described in the local press as follows: 'An entire section of the mansion has been set apart for the royal family, so that all their apartments communicate without the necessity of passing into the corridors to be used by other occupants of the house. The Queen will live here in privacy, and from the windows of her rooms she can walk into delightful grounds, which will be kept private during her stay at Muckross. In her sitting room - which, like all the others, is a splendid apartment furnished richly and tastefully, there is a series of views of the Lakes of Killarney, painted by Mrs Herbert. They are works of the highest artistic excellence.' ( Kerry Evening Post , Wednesday 28 August, 1861).

Window Upholstery installed in the Diningroom of Muckross House for the visit of Queen Victoria in August 1861.

Torc Waterfall, Killarney.

The following day the Queen, accompanied in her carriage by Mrs Herbert, drove around the Muckross Demesne, visiting Dinis Island, Mangerton and Torc waterfall. Following lunch at Muckross House, the party then embarked at Muckross boathouse for Tomies to view a stag hunt upon the Lake. ( Kerry Evening Post , Saturday 31 August, 1861).

Mr Herbert's Staghunt, Killarney, Upper Lake, 1878,

by W.A. Nesfield.

Watercolour of Muckross Abbey, 1861, by Mary Balfour Herbert. Queen's Bedroom, Muckross House.

Before departing from Muckross, the Queen sent for Mrs Mary Herbert and presented her with a bracelet of gold, pearls and diamonds. Her daughters, Eleanor and Blanche, also each received a piece of jewellery. The Royal Collection at Windsor Castle contains three water-colours by Mary Herbert. Presumably Mary presented these to the Queen on her departure.

At noon the Royal party left Muckross House for Killarney Railway station. There they boarded their train for Dublin, which they reached in just a little over five hours. Mr Miller, Chief engineer of the Great Southern and Western Railway drove the train both to and from Killarney.( Kerry Evening Post , Saturday 31 August, 1861). The unstable financial situation of the Herberts in the late nineteenth century may have stemmed from the outlay involved in preparations for this Royal visit.

• Queen Victoria's Fourth Visit to Ireland
• History and Genealogy

On the 3rd of April 1900, Queen Victoria made her fourth and final visit to Ireland.

Queen Victoria had previously visited Ireland in 1849 , 1853, and 1861 . On these occassions she had been accompanied by her husband and consort Prince Albert. This time she came as a widow in mourning. This visit differs from others in that it occured during the age of photography. This has provided us with evidence of the large crowds that came out in the streets to welcome the monarch to Ireland. Though sceptics have suggested that the visit was merely a recruitment tour for the Boer War, the volume of people cheering for the Queen shows that there was a surprising amount of support for the monarch. 

The Queen travelled from Dún Laoighaire to Phoenix Park and was accompanied by military bands. The longest of her visits to Ireland, Victoria spent three weeks in the capital. The Queen died the following January bringing to an end the longest reign of a British monarch until her great great grandaughter Elizabeth II. 

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