Prince William and Kate planning first official visit to Ireland
Following a request from the Foreign Office, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will travel to the republic in March.
Wednesday 12 February 2020 09:30, UK
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will make their first official visit to Ireland next month following a request by the Foreign Office.
Prince William and Kate will travel to the republic between Tuesday 3 March and Thursday 5 March.
More details about the brief tour, which unusually was announced in advance, will be released in due course.
The British Embassy in Dublin tweeted: "We look forward to welcoming the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to Ireland next month."
The trip by the second in line to the throne is likely to be seen as a diplomacy visit following Brexit at the end of January.
William's grandmother, the Queen, made a historic journey to the Irish Republic in 2011 amid unprecedented security.
She became the first British monarch to travel there in 100 years and the first since the nation gained independence from Britain.
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Her Majesty bowed her head in Dublin's Garden of Remembrance to pay tribute to the rebels who rose up against British rule in 1916.
She also spoke Irish during an address to a state banquet and visited Croke Park stadium, where British forces shot dead 14 spectators at a Gaelic football match in 1920.
William's father, the Prince of Wales, and the Duchess of Cornwall have visited Ireland five times over the past five years - a sign of the closer Anglo-Irish relations following the Queen's tour.