Charles: My mother prayed for NI peace'

KING TELLS NORTHERN IRELAND HIS FAMILY 'FELT THEIR SORROW'

- 

KING Charles III has pledged to "seek the welfare" of all Northern Ireland's people and described how his family have felt their "sorrows" as he praised his mother's relationship with Northern Ireland.

Charles, who in 2015 made a pilgrimage to the site of his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten's murder in an IRA bombing, said the Queen had "never ceased to pray for the best of times for this place and its people".

Speaking at Hillsborough Castle in Co Down, the royal residence in Northern Ireland, the new monarch said the late Queen was aware of her position in bringing together divided communities "whom history had separated"

Later, the King shook hands with the President of Ireland Michael D Higgins following a memorial service for the late Queen at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast.