The time had now come when the Queen had to make preparations for a visit to Ireland which she had planned. On the 21st of August her Majesty, the Prince Consort, Prince Alfred--fresh from his West Indian cruise--and the Princesses Alice and Helena, started for Holyhead, which they reached at seven o’clock in the evening. They arrived at Kingstown at midnight, and next morning (22nd August), accompanied by Lord Carlisle, the Lord-Lieutenant, his Chief Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, and Sir George Brown, Commander of the Forces in Ireland, they proceeded to Dublin. Despite the wet and stormy weather, the populace gave their Royal visitors a cordial reception. Next morning (23rd August) the Prince Consort visited the Curragh Camp to see for himself how the Prince of Wales was progressing with his military studies there, and the Queen received a loyal address from the Lord Mayor and Corporation of Dublin. In the afternoon the Royal party drove through the city, where crowds cheered them loudly wherever they went, and in the evening they met at dinner the Duke of Leinster, the Marquis and Marchioness of Headfort, the Marquis and Marchioness of Kildare, and Lady Charlemont. On Saturday, the 24th, the Queen herself visited the Curragh Camp, and reviewed the troops there. As they passed the cavalry one of the bands began to play an air which had been a favourite with the Duchess of Kent, and repeated it on marching past. “This,” wrote the Queen in her Diary, “entirely upset me, and the tears would have flowed freely had I not checked them by a violent effort. But I felt sad the whole day till I came to Bertie (the Prince of Wales), who looked so well.”[105] Then came some field manœuvres, and a visit to “Bertie’s hut,” where the whole party, with Sir George Brown, General Ridley, Colonels Wetherell, Browning, and Percy--the latter of whom had the Prince of Wales under his care--partook of a comfortable luncheon. The Queen thanked Colonel Percy very warmly “for treating Bertie as he did like any other officer, for,” she says in her Diary, “I know he keeps him up to his work in a way, as General Bruce told me, no one else has done; and yet Bertie likes him very much.” On Sunday afternoon the Queen visited the Kilmainham Hospital, and on Monday (August 26th) celebrated her husband’s birthday. “Alas!” she writes to King Leopold, “there is so much so different this year--nothing festive, and we on a journey, and separated from many of our children, and my spirits bad.” [Illustration: THE EAGLE’S NEST, KILLARNEY. (_After a Photograph by W. Lawrence, Dublin._)]