I got hopelessly lost the first time I drove in Sydney.
It was in 1989, the era before sat-navs, and as my sense of direction was never very good at the best of times it was inevitable. I still could get lost in a phone box.
Anyway, I eventually caught sight of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and headed for that. And when I got there in early afternoon I was really surprised by a strange sight.
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The last thing I expected to see were hundreds of people milling around dressed in green and white clothing, fake red beards etc. For some very odd reason it took me a while to cop on - it was St Patrick’s Day! These people were having a Hooley.
Years earlier, in 1972, I had been in America where I stayed with a couple who told me that not only did the locals dye their river water green on St Patrick’s Day but that most of the local pubs sold green beer. Apparently, they still do.
And in Cabo Roig, outside Torrevieja in Spain, I sat in the sun one beautiful March afternoon in the mid noughties watching a gang of sweating men climb ladders and hoist bunting and Irish tricolours across the main thoroughfare.
St Patrick’s Day is a big deal there too. On Thursday night I was watching the news when Economy minister, Gordon Lyons came on screen, beamed directly in from the White House. The DUP man was certainly not wearing green, and he certainly wasn’t singing from the same hymn sheet as the other contributors on the night.
He said there needed to be a better understanding of the Protocol and its impact in Northern Ireland and how rather than solving problems it was, actually, contributing to them.
"That has not been grasped, and that is one of the main reasons why I am here," he explained.
Earlier in the day US President Joe Biden reiterated his administration’s “unequivocal support” for the Good Friday Agreement.
“I’ve made that clear, as you probably heard, to the prime minister,” he said.
“Too much blood, sweat and tears have been shed to get that done, and this is no time to change it.”
Later Biden returned to the same theme when he addressed the Friends of Ireland lunch on Capitol Hill when he said that the GFA was “truly, truly, truly, truly supported” in the US.
“We insist that it be maintained,” he said to resounding applause.
At the same event US Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, too made it very clear that the GFA's integrity must take precedence over any post Brexit arrangements as the UK seeks both a free trade deal with the US and changes to the Protocol.
According to The Mirror, she said: “Our relationship in regards to trade is dependent on the value of the Good Friday accords.”
Where I am going with all this? It must be blindingly obvious by now.
John Hume, in particular, and the many others who have followed him, assiduously promoted the cause of Irish nationalists for decades both in the United Stated and in Europe.
That diplomatic effort has been so powerful, so successful that both the US and EU are now not only singing from the same hymn sheet they are also singing in total harmony when it comes to Brexit and the Protocol.
By way of contrast, unionism never really ‘sold’ itself on the world stage, never cultivated key influencers across the globe. Now when it really needs them, it has few friends.
And, I would contend, it is too late now to change that.
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