Perhaps some of the patients in the Royal Victoria Hospital were thrilled when they heard that Prince Charles was coming on Tuesday.
Did their blood pressure rise in gratitude at the news that it wasn't just any old royal who was heading their way but the heir to the throne of England himself? Did their hearts beat faster at the thought that he might visit their ward? Did they tidy up their locker, slip their false teeth back in, call for a mirror to be brought or a bedpan removed in case the royal personage came in and grasped their hand and photographers took a picture?
Certainly for staff the visit meant more work. With wards closed off, movement of materials and personnel around the hospital took twice and sometimes three times as long as normal. But I expect staff smiled and welcomed the extra effort as their contribution to the happy occasion.
Or maybe not. Maybe some staff and patients wondered why in God's name this man had been chosen to open the first phase of their new hospital.
Admittedly, Charles's great-great-grandfather King Edward VII (yes, the sad spineless creature in the Mrs Brown movie) opened the original hospital 100 years ago – but then 100 years ago things were a bit different than they are today. Back then people saw royalty as God's anointed.
The fact that Edward and the many other royals led lives of obscene ease seemed part of God's arrangement of things and to query them would have been seen as next door to challenging God's will. Today most sane people see things a bit differently since we know things about the royals that people then didn't.
For example, we know that the man who honoured the Royal Victoria Hospital with his presence on Tuesday is on the record as saying that he would like to have been a Tampax. We know he married a woman he didn't love and then acted in a way that drove her to the edge of mental breakdown and even, some claim, to the brink of suicide. We know he is a man who gave away or in some cases may have sold gifts he received from visiting heads of state. We know he is a man who presided over a royal household where allegations of homosexual rape between two royal servants was followed by strong suggestions of a palace cover-up, the alleged victim being paid off and dismissed at three times his salary. We know he is a man who lectures the public on the benefits of organic foods and then sells organic biscuits that have been made in his Duchy of Cornwall.
That said, we also know he is a man who just over half the population here in the north regard with affection and respect to the point where they feel the need to bow or curtsy should he look their way.
This seems odd to those of us who don't believe in lowering our heads or other parts because we're in the presence of another human being, but if that is what people want to do, particularly those we see the need for reconciliation with, we accept it.
When Prince Charles visited the Royal no crowds of nationalists gathered to voice their objection to his presence. The heir to the English throne is still colonel-in-chief of the Parachute Regiment which slaughtered innocent people on the streets of Derry just 31 years ago. And shortly after his visit to the Royal he hurried to another ceremony honouring the history and deeds of the RUC over the last 30 years.
Most nationalists, particularly those unfortunates pinned to their beds by sickness and unable to put distance between themselves and the visitor, would have found Charles's visit distasteful. But rather than voice their objections they accepted that others felt differently, closed their eyes and did their best to think of Ireland.
However, the Good Friday Agreement emphasises the need for parity of esteem, for balance in respect of differing cultural and political traditions here. In which case it seems reasonable to believe that should a major piece of work, a new ward or a new section need to be opened in, say, the City Hospital sometime in the near future, no-one will object if President Mary McAleese is invited to perform the ceremony.
After all the Irish President's most controversial actions to date are that, a couple of years back, she received Communion in a Protestant church and this summer spent a week in the Donegal Gaeltacht with the British ambassador to Ireland. So unionists won't mind having her do the honours – and if they do, they'll close their eyes and think of, um, Ulster.
Won't they?
