Here’s a nice little item from 1946— about the  wishful thinking of Unionists
regarding Irish-Americans.

ON THIS DAY— April 2, 1946
Edited by Eamon Phoenix
Irish News (Belfast). Thursday, April 2, 2015

It was unfortunate for the Northern Home Affairs Minister, Mr. Edmond Warnock, KC
that Senator James Farrelly, who was US Postmaster-General in the Roosevelt
administration, should arrive in Belfast on Saturday last.
Speaking at a Unionist meeting in Glengall Street, Mr. Warnock said: ‘Far too much
importance has been attached to American opinion on the question of Partition.  The
only people who hold opinions on it are the Irish-Americans and they are rapidly
dying out as people of importance in the American state.’
Asked by an Irish News reporter on Saturday if he thought Irish-Americans were
rapidly dying out as people of importance in the American state, Mr. Farrelly – who
is in a much better position to know than Mr. Warnock MP –at once replied: ’No, sir!
And I say this sincerely.  I would not agree.  Irish-American influence is stronger
now than it ever has been before in American politics.’  The former US politician
instanced the fact that three leading US cities—New York, Chicago and Boston—have
all Irish American Mayors.
Mr. Farrelly, a distinguished Catholic, was National Chairman of the Democratic
Party, managed Roosevelt’s first two Presidential campaigns and was Postmaster
General for seven and a half years.  As chairman of the Coca Cola export
Corporation, he paid a brief visit in Belfast on Saturday in the course of what is
almost a world tour of centers of the industry.
Asked what he thought of Mr. De Valera, Mr. Farrelly replied: ‘I have an extremely
high opinion of Dev and the Irish in the States regard him with real, wholehearted
affection.’
It was coincidental that just about a hundred years after his ancestors had been
forced to leave Ireland during the potato famine that Mr. Farrelly should return. 
His ancestors were from County Meath and, to use his own words, he hopes to ‘take a
run to Meath in a few days to say hello to the Farrellys. Mr. Farrelly expressed his
deep love of Ireland and said he was here in 1939 when he was the guest in Dublin of
Mr. John Cudahy, then US Minister.
Asked by a pressman if he would see any of the members of the Northern Government,
Mr. Farrelly replied that he would not have time as he was leaving in a few hours
for Glasgow.