Prince Charles and Camilla appear in high spirits for one day visit to Northern Ireland 

Prince Charles has been seen wearing in a face mask for the first time in public as he joined Camilla on a  whirlwind one day trip to Northern Ireland.

The Prince of Wales, 71, and the Duchess of Cornwall, 73, arrived in the country this morning for a series of engagements in order to thank individuals who have gone the extra mile during the pandemic. 

Prince Charles stepped out in a face covering for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, opting for a £6.50 mask crafted by seamstresses from his Turquoise Mountain Textiles programme.

The royal couple appeared in high spirits as they visited local communities and organisations during the busy one day visit.     

In keeping with royal visits to Northern Ireland, details were not released in advance and the itinerary was not disclosed for security reasons. 

Prince Charles opted for a smart navy suit and white shirt for the visit, and added a pale blue tie.

Meanwhile the royal also donned a turquoise face covering with a bold gold pattern during several engagements.  

The facemasks worn by Prince Charles and Camilla during their visit were made by seamstresses who have been supported through the Turquoise Mountain Textiles programme, which was set up by The Prince of Wales in 2006 to protect heritage at risk and to provide training and jobs around the world.  

The masks are crafted by artisans in Myanmar using handwoven heritage textiles to turn leftover stock fabrics f into unique and colourful face coverings.  

For every mask sold, the organisation is donating one to vulnerable communities in Yangon. 

The royal couple arrived at the Ulster Museum in south Belfast on this morning at the start of a series of engagements in Northern Ireland. 

Kickstarting a busy day of engagements, the couple met a number of young nurses who recently completed their training early to help with the coronavirus pandemic during a visit to the Ulster Museum in Belfast.

They thanked a number of young nurses who completed their training early to assist in the battle against coronavirus. 

They spent time speaking with nurses outside the building, who transitioned early from Queen’s University Belfast and the Open University into clinical roles amid the health crisis. 

Fiona Pierce, who will qualify as a midwife at the Royal Victoria Hospital, said it had felt nice to be thanked for their contribution. 

‘It’s been a different end to the course than what we envisioned but we all met it with great enthusiasm and so excited to be recognised as being able to support the workforce,’ she said.

Bronach Best, who works in mental health, said everyone had pulled together as a community of staff in the effort.

‘I think the public have been great, there was one occasion when I was going shopping in my uniform, and met a mum with her son who was wearing a Spiderman costume, and she said, ‘look there is a real life hero there’,’ she said.

‘It’s nice to be appreciated.’

Inside the museum, Charles and Camilla were shown an exhibition marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, which also celebrates the contribution of nurses since the First World War up to the present day.

Moving through the attraction, the royal couple were also shown one from a series of six Rembrandt etchings, the first by the artist to be publicly displayed in Northern Ireland after the museum benefited from an agreement negotiated by the tax authorities to secure £150,000 owed to the Exchequer.

Charles took an interest in a handwoven replica of the famous Iron Throne from the HBO show Game Of Thrones which had been commissioned for the end of the fantasy drama of battles for power which was principally filmed in the region.

‘A frame of thrones,’ the prince quipped as he stood beside the piece for photographs.

The royal couple heard from museum staff and volunteers about their work in getting the attraction up and running after it was closed for four and a half months during lockdown.

It reopened on July 30, managing visitor numbers through an online booking system, and have reported numbers remaining at just 25% of the usual footfall.

Before departing, the prince and the duchess met Belfast Lord Mayor Frank McCoubrey and city council employees who maintain the gardens outside the Tropical Ravine building.  

The pair went on to split for further engagements, with Prince Charles travelling to a food and grocery distribution centre in Newtownabbey. 

He could be seen laughing and joking with staff while he thanked them for their efforts during the health crisis and heard of the unprecedented demand they faced in recent months. 

Prince Charles helped negotiate a long service award for a warehouse operator while meeting staff at Henderson Foodservice where he was introduced to Dermot Ferguson, 64, a warehouse operator who formed part of a team delivering food parcels to the elderly and vulnerable during lockdown. 

Charles congratulated Mr Ferguson for his work in the community and then asked: ‘So how many years have you done this?’ 

When Mr Ferguson told him he had worked for the company for 40 years, the Prince said: ‘Forty years?’ and gesturing towards the company’s joint managing director Martin Agnew, asked: ‘Has he given you anything?’   

The warehouseman replied: ‘Not yet but he will now,’ before insisting the company was a fine employer. 

The Prince went to the firm, which supplies more than 450 stores including 96 supermarkets and convenience stores it owns itself under the Spar, EuroSpar, and Vivo names to recognise its achievements in keeping Northern Ireland consumers supplied with groceries during the pandemic. 

It has diversified to introduce home delivery services from 250 stores during the crisis. Stores have also supported their own communities by delivering hampers to nurses and others isolating away from their families.

In the company’s giant 200,000 sq ft ambient warehouse surrounded by 18,500 pallets and dozens of staff lined up in socially distanced rows, Charles was presented with a hamper of Northern Irish produce. 

The Prince told them: ‘I’ve been hearing a lot about all the work you’ve put into helping to maintain everything despite the difficulties and the challenges I know you’ve all been facing with this particular pandemic.  

‘I can only congratulate all of you, for what it’s worth, for the amount of effort you’ve put into this and clearly the extraordinary amount of difference you’ve managed to make to so many people’s lives, particularly in delivering food parcels and all the trouble that’s taken in ensuring that everybody knows which customer is which and what needs are required. 

‘And despite, I suspect, at the beginning of all of this having to deal with a huge number of people trying to hoard everything, I hope that had calmed down now and you’re all managing all right.’ 

He added: ‘But if I may just say, thank you for all the extra effort you’ve put in and I hope I haven’t caused mammoth disruption to the normal smooth working of this incredible operation. 

‘But well done all of you. Thank you.’ 

The company, which has been operating for 123 years, employs more than 4,000 people in Northern Ireland.  

Meanwhile the Duchess visited Belfast & Lisburn Women’s Aid, where she met with staff, supporters and service users to hear of the challenges they have faced in recent months. 

The royal sat in silent astonishment today as she listened to the story of a woman whose four children had been murdered by her abusive former husband. 

Camilla looked ashen-faced as she listened to the anonymous woman, who was trafficked to Northern Ireland via Germany from her home country of Somalia, tearfully recall how four of her six children – all boys – were stabbed to death by her former partner, who also tried to kill her. 

The man has never been brought to justice and after her other two children, a twin boy and girl, were taken away from her by their paternal grandfather, the woman – who was married at just 16 for the first time – left Somalia and has never seen them again. 

She wept as she thanked Camilla for coming to hear her story, telling her: ‘Thank you, thank you for coming to listen. I am very very happy to see you today.’ 

Camilla smiled and said: ‘No thank you for telling us’ and made a point of going up to her afterwards and telling her: ‘You are so very, very brave.’ 

The duchess, who has made the issue of domestic abuse a cornerstone of her public work, made the solo visit to the Women’s Aid centre during an official trip to Northern Ireland with her husband.

She admitted that despite her extensive work in the arena she was shocked at some of the statistics she had heard. 

Some 32,000 incidents of domestic violence were reported across Northern Ireland last year, the highest number of incidents since records began 15 years ago.  

 It is now on par with Romania as having the highest incidence of domestic abuse in Europe per head of population.

Women’s Aid runs three refuges in Belfast and Lisburn – helping around 900 women a year – and offers a range of other support services, including a new web chat service developed during lockdown for women who were were shut in with their abusers and too scared to use the phone.

The CEO of the Belfast group, Kelly Andrews, explained to the duchess that Northern Ireland was some way behind the UK in terms of legislation protecting women over stalking and issues such as coercive control but were catching up. 

She said that much of the region’s problems were due to the familial nature of society and the fact that men had traditionally very much been the head of the household. 

‘Married women felt they had made their bed and had to lie in it,’ she said. 

On a positive note, the Duchess was told that more women were also reporting incidents. 

Discussing the issue to how incidents of domestic violence had seen a marked increase since lockdown, the Duchess remarked: ‘Victims are more exposed and it seems the problem is escalating which is endlessly worrying,’ she said. ‘There is no way out of the situation, or so they think, they feel trapped. They don’t trust anybody.’ 

Camilla visibly started when Siobhan Graham, manager of one of the refuges, told her about an 87-year-old woman who finally had the courage to report her 89-year-old abusive husband after years of violence to the police during lockdown. 

‘Unfortunately she went back to him, they often do,’ she said. ‘It’s not until you start digging that you realise how bad the situation is,’ Camilla said.

Inside the building the duchess sat down for tea with a group of women – and one young man- who had been helped by Women’s Aid.

She listened keenly as one middle-aged woman told her: ‘I was with my husband for 37 years and he became and alcoholic and my abuse got worse. I never had the strength to leave but then I rang Women’s Aid and they gave me the strength. I am now on my own, I have my own home, I have my self-confidence and a path I never had before.’ 

‘What gave you the courage to leave?’ Camilla asked. 

‘One day something just clicked. I told him ‘I’m leaving, I told him i would not be back and I have never looked back,’ the woman replied.

‘It shows what can be done,’ Camilla smiled.

 Another young woman stood to tell her that she had been trafficked to Northern Ireland by her former boyfriend. ‘I come here,’ she said, gesturing around the room, ‘ to be safe from him and his organisation and this is a place that can help me go on with my life. One day I will start a normal life. There are things I can never forget but I hope I can go on to have the life I deserve.’ 

‘Thank you for telling us,’ Camilla said. 

Shown a garden the women had created as a place of tranquility and refuge during lockdown, Camilla smiled and said: ‘There’s nothing better than a garden, especially during Covid.’

‘It shows you there is a life and you can blossom,’ she was told. 

‘That’s obviously happening here,’ the royal replied. As she left Camilla told the charity’s team: ‘They couldn’t survive without you. 

‘I promise I will return. I would like to see the refuges in action when this [covid] has all settled down. ‘ 

Asked whether she had seen any difference between Northern Ireland and other parts of the world she had visited, Camilla shook her head and said: ‘Sadly this is a problem worldwide. Wherever you go it is just the same. Luckily there are organisations like Women’s Aid today who are their lifelines.’ 

Asked whether her fears which she expresssed earlier this year, that lockdown would see an explosion in domestic violence as victims were virtually imprisoned with their abusers, she said: ‘I am afraid so. I would like to say it hasn’t but I am afraid to say that it has. We have all got to do our bit to try and break the corrosive silence around the issue. I certainly am trying to do everything I can. 

‘Like today, when we are allowed out, I would like to do more. 

‘The bravery of the women today was remarkable. I was incredibly moved.’  

The couple’s visit comes weeks after Prince William visited the country to mark Emergency Services Day. 

During his trip, the Duke of Cambridge, 38, spoke about how he struggled to talk about his emotions in a job that saw him encounter tragedy on a regular basis.