LONDON (Reuters) - President Michael Higgins became the first Irish head of state on Tuesday to make a state visit to Britain, crowning a big improvement in historically fraught relations between Dublin and its former colonial master.
More than 3,600 people were killed in British-ruled Northern Ireland from the 1960s onward until a 1998 peace deal largely ended the conflict between Catholic groups wanting the province to become part of the Irish Republic and Protestant groups determined to keep it within the United Kingdom.
