The High Sheriff of County Fermanagh, Pat O’Doherty, said it was an honour to read out the Accession Proclamation of King Charles III in Enniskillen last Sunday, but admitted it was a solemn duty as well and one that “came out of the blue”.

Pat, alongside Viscount Brookeborough, stood on the balcony of the town hall to read the proclamation to a large crowd gathered below in the pouring rain.

“It was a very historic occasion,” said Pat, before adding: “It was thrust upon you because no one expected The Queen to pass away so suddenly.

“She had met [Prime Minister] Liz Truss [on Tuesday] and she was working right up to the end, and then the sudden news [on Thursday] that she wasn’t well.

“It has been sort of a tornado of events that have happened in the space of a couple of days.

“One minute The Queen had passed, and the next minute they were proclaiming a new King.”

Juxtaposition

And it was the juxtaposition of these events, the death of one monarch and the ascension of a new one, that Pat wanted to convey during the reading.

“On the one hand, you had the passing of a great Queen, and on the other, then the ascension of a King. It was an ebb-and-flow of nature.

“There was a double-edged sword with emotions and everyone had sort of grappled with that.

“The Queen herself, she had gained such a reverence from the people because she rose above politics.

“With all she had done, especially in Ireland – well-documented events, and Enniskillen as one of them – that really stood out in peoples’ minds and so there is a lot of very deep deep sympathy and sadness for The Queen passing away.”

And Pat feels the moment was captured during the proclamation last weekend: “It was a crazy sort of emotional day, and in trying to gauge the moment, you had to be reverent, and yet have a sort of a happiness to it. It was a strange time.

“It was trying to get the right balance, and I think we captured that.”

Ascension

While that was the only official engagement Pat has had in relation to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and the ascension of King Charles III, he was honoured as High Sheriff to read it out: “It was great to be invited to take part in the announcement of the proclamation. It was an historic day, and it was an honour to be asked to read it out.”

And out of his year as High Sheriff, this has been the highlight for Pat: “It has been a good year. Fermanagh is a good county to be involved in, with such a lot of good stuff to be involved in, and it has been a brilliant year for me, but this has been a highlight.”