American trip has to be justified
St Patrick's Day celebrations in the American cities of Washington and New York traditionally take on the trappings of an Hibernia-fest and, even at the highest levels of government and civic life and with people of little or no links to Ireland, there is a misty-eyed approach to all things Irish.
The aspirations of the pro-Union majority population in Northern Ireland are never high on the agenda at these brash shamrock and shillelagh shindigs, even though in recent years leading unionist politicians also have found it necessary to trip across the Atlantic every mid-March to join in the merriment and craic and be regaled as “sons and daughters of Erin”.
Northern Ireland politicians, both unionist and republican/nationist, will, of course, seek to justify their journey on the premise that it is vitally important to indulge the American power-brokers on the need to continue to invest in our local economy and proffer support for the devolved regime.
American-backed employment has long been a mainstay of the Northern Ireland economy and on Tuesday there was a welcome announcement by Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster in Massachusetts of 50 additional software jobs for Belfast.
However, the size of the large ministerial, party and civil service posses from Stormont this week is beginning to rival that of the political establishment in the Republic, where, since the days of Eamon de Valera, there has been a cynical desire to proclaim on March 17 the 26 counties as the 50th State of the Union.
Most of the considerable cost of dispatching our politicians and civil servants to the US will be borne by the taxpayer and, in future years, as politics settles, perhaps our level of representation will not have to be so high.
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Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 14 February 2012
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Temperature: 6 C to 8 C
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