The 250th anniversary of America is celebrated at a reception in Belfast

The coming anniversary of the 1776 declaration of independence was marked at the residence of the US consul-general in the south of the city. The consulate in Ulster, which was founded in the 1790s in the years after the United States was founded, is the second oldest US consulate in the world.

Yesterday afternoon (Thursday), hundreds of guests enjoyed an outside reception hosted by the outgoing consul-general James Applegate, in sunshine and 27 Celsius heat.

After the marching of the National Colors and service flags at the residence in Shaw’s Bridge, the band of Campbell College played the US national anthem.

​The annual ceremony and celebration is always held in late June, days before July 4, the actual date in 1776 which Americans celebrate as the founding of the United States.

It is a particularly noteworthy event this year, given that it is a quarter of a millennium since that momentous declaration, which was reported in the Belfast News Letter (we are one of the few newspapers still publishing that was around back then).

Mr Applegate told his guests, gathered on the lawn, that he and his family would sorely miss Northern Ireland as they move on to China. The long history of the consulate in Belfast is a reflection of the deep historical links.

Mr Applegate spoke about John Dunlap, a Strabane-born early migrant to America who printed the first copies of the 1776 declaration, which changed the history of the world.