Queen meets Irish president during historic visit

The queen symbolically wore emerald green for the start of her four-day visit, the first by a British monarch since Ireland won independence from London in 1921.

She met McAleese, a Catholic from Northern Ireland and a champion of better relations between the two countries, for a ceremonial welcome followed by a lunch of roast turbot and boxty, a traditional Irish potato cake.Standing before the president's house, the former residence of the viceroys who oversaw British rule in Ireland, the queen reviewed a Guard of Honour and was given a 21-gun salute.

She then took part in a tree planting ceremony - shovelling soil onto an Irish oak sapling newly planted in the gardens. Afterwards, two deaf teenagers rang the Peace Bell, which was unveiled in the grounds of Aras in 2008 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

The visit took place just hours after a makeshift bomb was found in the luggage compartment of a bus heading to Dublin.

The trip is designed to show how warm neighbourly relations have replaced centuries of animosity, but the discovery of the bomb, and a coded warning on Monday about a possible bomb in London, were stark reminders that a small minority remain violently opposed to continued British rule in Northern Ireland.

Ireland is mounting its biggest ever security operation for the four-day visit and the arrival of U.S. President Barack Obama two days later.

Anglo-Irish conflict goes back centuries, marked by a bitter history of settlement by British Protestants in the mainly Catholic country.

Ireland was given self rule in a 1921 treaty and severed its last ties to the British monarchy in 1948. The north of the island remains part of the United Kingdom.

Dissident nationalists have said the queen is not welcome on Irish soil.