THERE was a time – and it seems an extraordinarily long time ago – when politicians from Northern Ireland visiting the White House over the St Patrick’s Day week was considered a ‘really big thing’.

The sort of big thing that dominated headlines for a week or so.

The sort of big thing, moreover, that didn’t require the politicians to justify themselves to the media or even members of their own party.

The sort of big thing, in other words, which suggested to the rest of the world that something very specific, very important was happening in the political undergrowth.

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And in the years between 1995 – a few months after the IRA and loyalist paramilitary ceasefires – and 2008, a few months after the debut of the Paisley/McGuinness Chuckle Brothers double act as first and deputy first ministers, the visits were important.

Providing opportunities for quiet conversations away from the photo-opportunities in the Oval Office and allowing time for political players from Dublin, London, Belfast and Washington to chat away from the prying eyes and ears in and around locations close to home.

These visits have sometimes, I think, been over-egged in terms of their importance.

That said, at a time when the process could so easily have been upended by a careless word or paramilitary activity, the chance to hobnob with a US President, particularly Clinton, was one that parties were reluctant to pass up.

He was committed to the process and always had been. He wanted a foreign policy success that America could boast of with justification for decades: unlike many other deals, which tended to fall apart at the seams fairly quickly.

But to be honest, I’m not sure what useful purpose is now served by the visits.

Important work goes on all the year round in terms of attracting assorted US businesses and investments to Northern Ireland. Executive ministers travel to and from America fairly regularly.

Invest NI has offices in New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco; as well as in Toronto and Mexico City. Their work goes on all the year round.

The NI Executive also maintains a presence in Washington through the NI Bureau, which is there to ‘foster and strengthen relationships between political, economic, educational and cultural interests in Northern Ireland and North America’.

So there is actually no need for the hoopla around St Patrick’s Day and the White House gigs. There is nothing done then than could not be done any other time of the year.

Apart, that is, from the photo-opportunity with the President. And even if some of them don’t succeed in getting the one-to-one, thumbs-up shots with him, there’s always the chance they’ll be included in shots with lots of other big names from Congress or maybe even Trump’s advisers.

None of which, to be brutally honest, actually amounts to a hill of beans when it comes to politics at home.

In terms of the peace process here (and isn’t it odd that we still use the peace process description this far down the line), Donald Trump has no interest whatsoever.

The fact that he even chucked in a joke about Irish unity sums up his complete lack of interest.

That’s why I actually miss someone like Jim Allister on occasions like that. He would have barracked the President: and, for good measure, he would also have barracked those unionists in the room who felt obliged to titter along; and then insist afterwards that Trump was just being mischievous.

He wasn’t, of course. He was being his usual boorish, doesn’t-give-a-damn self: the living embodiment of Lord Farquaad from Shrek –the sole ruler of Duloc, who caged and relocated people who didn’t fit in with his idea of the perfect place.

The notion put around by some that they were there to ‘inform’ the President about Northern Ireland was, to be blunt about it, fatuous.

Everything said to him about this place will have gone in one ear and out the other – primarily because there is nothing between the ears to slow the words down and make him think about them.

He doesn’t care about the peace process. He doesn’t care about the Assembly or the Executive. He doesn’t care about the relationships between the various parties. He doesn’t care about reconciliation.

He doesn’t care. Full stop. His only moment of potential interest in any part of Ireland lay in the possibility of persuading Micheál Martin to buy American gas.

The people who really deserve our thanks – and not just because they don’t scurry around for photo-opportunities and ‘oh-look-at-me’ moments – are the staff of the Invest NI offices and NI Bureau.

They do the work all year round and facilitate the non-politicos who beaver away in the background at home and in the US trying to win over friends and finance for Northern Ireland.

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