QUEEN ELIZABETH IS to visit Croke Park during her visit to Ireland in May to watch an exhibition of schoolchildren playing hurling and football.

The event will be deeply historically significant, as the location marks the same spot where British auxiliary troops gunned down 14 civilians during a match in 1920.

The Queen is also due to visit the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin, which is dedicated to those who died for “cause of Irish freedom” – and will pay a visit to the Irish National War Memorial Gardens at Islandbridge, dedicated to the Irishmen who died in WWI, the Sunday Times reports.

Tim Pat Coogan, an historian and writer, told the newspaper: “They are obviously trying to make as friendly an overtone as possible… With Croke Park she would have been confronting Irish history head-on had the English rugby team not come in the meantime”.

Read Stephen O’Brien’s report in the print version of the Sunday Times >