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State Visit of Ireland’s President to Britain, a First, Underlines Evolution of Relations

LONDON — In a sign of the warmth of relations between two countries with a troubled history, Ireland’s president, Michael D. Higgins, is to arrive here Monday for the first state visit to Britain by an Irish president.

Once tainted by the legacy of colonialism, Anglo-Irish ties are now so close that Dublin worries about Britain’s drift from the European Union, the bloc to which both countries belong.

The four-day state visit is meant to reciprocate the historic one made by Queen Elizabeth to Ireland in 2011, an event that symbolized reconciliation between the two countries after the 1998 peace agreement in Northern Ireland. That theme will be on display again this week when Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister and a former commander in the Irish Republican Army, takes part in the visit.

Mr. Higgins and his wife, Sabina, are to stay as guests of the queen in Windsor Castle — a privilege in royal protocol — and be taken by horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Windsor. There will be a state banquet and visits to Prime Minister David Cameron’s office on Downing Street and to Parliament, where Mr. Higgins is to address lawmakers. He has been to Britain before, but this is his first state visit.

The red-carpet treatment underscores comments last month by Mr. Cameron, who said Anglo-Irish relations were at an “all- time high.” Yet Irish politicians fear the consequences of Britain’s disenchantment with the European Union and the prospect that their closest trading partner could quit the bloc, which includes a single economic market. Both nations joined its forerunner in 1973 and the union is seen in Dublin as vital glue in the relationship with London.

“Ireland will be very anxious not to be presented with a choice between our relations with the European Union and our relations with Britain,” Eunan O’Halpin, professor of Contemporary History at Trinity College, Dublin, said Thursday. “Irish diplomats will be tearing their hair out to avoid that.”

Little of that will be evident in public during four days of events intended to celebrate ties between neighbors whose histories, cultures and economies are intertwined.

The countries share a passport-free travel area and Irish influence pervades British life in many areas, like business and the media, where Irish broadcasters and entertainers are prominent.

Though there is still tension and sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, the governments in London and Dublin generally cooperate well.

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Michael D. HigginsCredit...Cathal McNaughton/Reuters

During the last, turbulent century that was often not the case. Mr. Higgins, a respected academic, plans to view the colors of Irish regiments of the British Army that were disbanded after Irish independence. An estimated 200,000 Irish soldiers fought in the British Army in World War I, and Mr. Higgins plans to lay a wreath at the grave of the unknown warrior at Westminster Abbey. He is also scheduled to visit the remains of a cathedral in Coventry that was destroyed during World War II. Ireland remained neutral in that conflict.

In a separate effort to come to terms with history, the British government said recently that in two years, it will be represented at centenary commemorations of the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule.

Over the decades, Irish immigrants experienced discrimination in Britain — landlords once felt free to advertise rooms with signs saying, “no Irish, no blacks, no dogs” — but racism is rare now, according to Bernard Purcell, editor of The Irish World, a newspaper aimed at Irish immigrants here.

“Things have changed immensely,” he said. “There isn’t the institutional racism of the kind that existed in the 1960s.” The most important recent factor is the peace agreement, he added, because bombing campaigns by the I.R.A., and the suspicion they brought upon Irish people, were “the biggest single shadow hanging over the Irish community in the 1970s and 1980s.”

Professor O’Halpin said political and economic ties were complemented by other connections. “There are enormous cultural crossovers,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that the two countries are identical, but it’s a closer relationship than with other European countries.”

Consequently, what happens in Britain affects Ireland. In September, Scotland is to vote on independence from the United Kingdom; Ireland’s government has sought to stay out of the matter.

But Dublin has urged Britain not to leave the European Union. Mr. Cameron has promised that if re-elected, he will renegotiate the terms of British membership in the European Union and put that to a referendum in 2017.

Unlike Britain, Ireland has adopted the euro, but the two countries work closely on European issues. Both prize their relationships with the United States and favor free markets, so usually end up as allies in negotiations at the European Union headquarters in Brussels.

In a speech last year, Eamon Gilmore, Ireland’s foreign minister, expressed concern about calls in Britain for withdrawal, saying it would be bad for Ireland “if its most important economic partner were to distance itself from the European Union.”

“At best, British detachment from Europe would slow and limit our efforts towards closer cooperation with each other,” Mr. Gilmore added. “At worst, it could reverse them.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: State Visit of Ireland’s President to Britain, a First, Underlines Evolution of Relations. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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