This week I was in Washington DC to report on the remarkable Northern Ireland elements to the St Patrick’s Day celebrations.

I planned to write my column above about the visit, but the Gerry Adams trial means (click here to read the column about that) I will do so again. In fact I will write about Ulster and America regularly until after the 250th July 4 anniversary of the declaration that we reported in 1776, which launched the United States. The celebrations resonate with me because one of my early memories, from four-and-a-half, of being on holiday for the bicentennial anniversary festivities on July 4 1976 on the streets of a coastal neighbourhood in Maine where we had lived until my parents brought our family back to Northern Ireland in 1974.

This year the unionist politicians worked together in Washington in the absence not only Sinn Fein, who boycotted President Trump, but also of elected SDLP or Alliance politicians (click here to see pictures of unionists in Washington over the last week).

Jonathan Buckley MLA of the DUP paid his own ticket (as, incidentally, did I) such was his keenness to be there. I too was determined to be out at this time when the role of the Scots Irish in America is in focus, thanks above all to Stormont’s communities minister Gordon Lyons. Emma Little-Pengelly, Paul Givan, and Jon Burrows were out too. Mike Nesbitt told me he remembered seeing the reverse in 1994: unionists boycotting DC over Gerry Adams’ presence.

Ben Lowry (@Benlowry2) is News Letter editor