Editorial: A reminder of Ulster links to the United States, which have been excellent for more than a century

​The United States president yesterday said God Bless the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Mr Trump was speaking during the state visit to America of King Charles and Queen Camilla, which is trying to keep special relationship on track.

It was interesting to hear the president, who is not one for small niceties, use the full name of the UK, including Northern Ireland.

There was no UK when the US was launched in 1776, only a union between England and Scotland. But American independence set in motion the French revolution, then a near revolution here in Ireland. This was one reason why London in 1801 established what became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (later Northern Ireland).

There have been excellent relations between Britain and America for more than a century, particularly after they were allies in two world wars. But relations were, obviously, atrocious after 1776 ended in victory for what the Americans called patriots and the British called rebels.

The Scots Irish (Ulster folk) played a key part in the revolution, which is ironic because most of them came from a community that had led the project to make Ulster more British in the 1600s.

The people who emigrated from here to America, mostly after the first successful transatlantic voyage from Ulster in 1717, made a huge impact on the pre and post revolutionary new world. We report today on James Gamble, who was born in Fermanagh in 1803, and became one of America’s most successful businessmen, founding Proctor and Gamble.

Links between Ulster and the US today are not as strong as they were, because much of that history is forgotten (unionists did emphasise it in DC on St Patrick’s Day). Current UK-US relations are currently strained but the historic connections and ultimate bonds remain strong.