BRITAIN’S DUKE AND Duchess of Cambridge will visit Galway during their first official trip to Ireland next month.

Kensington Palace announced on Tuesday that William and Kate will travel to Ireland between Tuesday 3 March and Thursday 5 March.

Gardaí in Galway notified businesses about a range of road closures in the city centre on 5 March to facilitate a brief visit by the royal couple. 

The closures will cover Williamsgate Street, Williams Street, Shop Street, High Street, Mainguard Street and possibly Abbeygate Street from 6am until 2pm.

TheJournal.ie understands that a team from Kensington palace visited Galway in recent weeks to make arrangements for the royals’ sojourn.

The exact details of their visit have yet to be revealed but the couple’s itinerary is expected to include an official welcome from the mayor of Galway city, Mike Cubbard. 

Mayor Cubbard welcomed the visit, which he says will put Galway in the spotlight of the world’s media in its year as European City of Culture.

“It’s a positive news story again which will put the public eye, the world eye, back on Galway and allow us to promote and celebrate the cultural hub we have here,” he said.

Cubbard says he was strongly opposed to the commemoration of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), which stirred up considerable controversy in January, but says the visit of William and Kate is entirely different.

“That was trying to celebrate a real dark history, that people still have connections with, and it was wrong. And that was proposed by our government at the time, which was just daft,” he said.

William and Kate are the face of modern-day Britain and we have to encourage British and Irish relations, of course. It’s certainly a welcome event.

The couple is visiting at the request of the UK foreign office and the British embassy said that further details of the tour will be released in due course.