It is more than half a century since our relationship with America reached peak sycophancy. Just months before he was assassinated, John F Kennedy spent four days in Ireland.

The St Patrick’s Day parade in New York City is to allow a group of gay employees from NBC to march next year.

An Irish 9/11 survivor, whose sister and niece were on one of the hijacked planes that was flown into the World Trade Centre, has said he will find it too "painful" to visit a new museum in New York dedicated to the victims of the infamous terrorist attacks.