King Charles pooped on by seagull and Queen pours pint on Northern Ireland visit

The King received an unwanted memento from a recent state visit – a splattering from a seagull.

Charles joked about his encounter with the bird after it left its mark on the bottom of his suit jacket as he toured the seaside town of Newcastle, Northern Ireland.

The king was about to start a meet-and-greet with the public that lined the crash barriers along the main street when the bird’s droppings struck, hitting Charles and those around him.

Irene Marting, 64, from the village of Dromara near Lisburn, was waiting in the crowds with her sister Paula Leitch to see the King and witnessed the incident unfold from across the street.

She said: ‘We were talking to the King about the seagull and he said, ‘It’s well it didn’t land on my head.

‘We’re so thrilled he’s come to Northern Ireland to see us, and it’s really nice to see him in Newcastle.’

The Queen was elsewhere, joking she was ‘not quite the expert’ while pouring a perfect pint of Guinness in Royal Hillsborough.

At the Parson’s Nose pub and restaurant, she was invited to help in serving up a pint of the black stuff after meeting the staff and received a round of applause for her efforts.

The royal couple ended their day by hosting a garden party at Hillsborough Castle – the King’s official residence in Northern Ireland – and the Queen met soldiers and officers from The Rifles, the regiment she serves as Colonel-in-Chief.

She asked them about a recent four-month deployment to Iraq, where they trained local forces, and they thanked her for a gift of Highgrove tea and shortbread biscuits.

Captain Harry Lin, from C company, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, said afterwards: ‘It was a very generous gesture, we were there at Christmas time, and we shared the shortbread with our American colleagues.

‘The Americans were generous to us, so we returned the favour. They didn’t know what shortbread was at first, but they kept coming back for more.’

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