King Charles III traveled to Northern Ireland on Tuesday in the latest stop on his four-part tour of the United Kingdom, where a crowd gathered to greet him in an area with a contested British and Irish identity. 

In the latest wave of affection since Queen Elizabeth II's death last Thursday, hundreds lined the street leading to Hillsborough Castle, the royal family's official residence in Northern Ireland, outside Belfast, where the area in front of the castle gates was carpeted with hundreds of floral decorations. Charles and his wife Camilla got out of their car to greet the villagers—sometimes waving to the jubilant crowd, and at other times using both hands simultaneously to shake the extended hands of people, including school children sometimes wearing light blue uniforms. Charles even played with a corgi dog—a dog breed favored by his late mother.

While there was a warm welcome at Hillsborough, the British monarchy has evoked mixed feelings in Northern Ireland, where two main groups exist: mostly Protestant unionists who consider themselves British and largely Catholic nationalists who see themselves as Irish.

This division fueled three decades of violence known as "The Troubles," involving paramilitary groups from both sides and British security forces, in which 3,600 people were killed. The royal family was also personally affected by the violence: Lord Louis Mountbatten, Queen's cousin and Charles's beloved mentor, was killed in an Irish Republican Army bomb explosion in 1979. There remains a deep sectarian divide, a quarter of a century after the 1998 Northern Ireland peace agreement.

For some Irish nationalists, the British monarch represents an oppressive foreign power. But others recognize the Queen's role in achieving peace. During a visit to Northern Ireland in 2012, she shook hands with Sinn Féin deputy leader Martin McGuinness, a former IRA leader—a moment of reconciliation that was once unimaginable.

On Falls Road in Belfast, a nationalist stronghold, many walls were decorated with murals of Bobby Sands, a prominent Irish Republican Army member who died during a hunger strike in prison in 1981, and others killed in the Troubles. "No, he is not our king," said Bobby Jones, 52. "Bobby Sands was our king here; the Queen never did anything for us, never did, none of the royal family ever do."

But as a sign of how far Northern Ireland has come on the road to peace, representatives of Sinn Féin—the main Irish nationalist party, linked during the Troubles to the Irish Republican Army—are attending memorial events for the Queen and will meet the King on Tuesday.

Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Féin leader, praised the 96-year-old Queen after her death last Thursday, calling her "a strong advocate and ally for those who believe in peace and reconciliation."

The President of the neighboring Republic of Ireland and its Prime Minister are also scheduled to attend a memorial service in Belfast, despite tense relations between Dublin and London regarding Brexit. Since Britain left the European Union in 2020, the UK and the EU have been disputing trade rules for Northern Ireland, the sole part of the United Kingdom that shares a border with a member of the bloc.

In the same context, on Monday night, Charles and his siblings, Anne, Andrew, and Edward, heads bowed, briefly stood around their mother’s flag-draped coffin in St. Giles Cathedral as members of the public came forward to pay their respects.