But the point must be made, how many of these individuals will now be booking a trip to Northern Ireland to come and see our Titanic sites, our golf courses and our historic cities?  In these times of economic severity, one has to wonder. Many New Yorkers I spoke to answered wistfully when asked if they wanted to visit. Most said, “Some day” but didn’t have any immediate plans to hand over their credit card details to the Continental Airlines website. On a personal note, it was an emotional experience for me to finally visit the city which my great grandfather was trying to reach in 1912. Although I arrived by plane, rather than steaming into New York harbour, it was still a thrill to see the Empire State building for the first time. On the limited downtime I enjoyed, I took the ferry to Staten Island and back, in order to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. On the return journey to Manhattan, I shed a slight tear as I thought that this was the first sight Tommy Millar would have seen of this land of opportunity had he survived Titanic’s sinking.

My other Titanic encounter during my visit was at the department store, Macy’s. Titanic fans will know the connection between this store and Isador and Ida Strauss, both lost on Titanic because she would not leave her husband. There is a memorial to them within the department store but at the moment it is hidden away in the office of the jewellery manager.  I enquired as to whether I might see it and take a photograph, displayed my Belfast Titanic Society membership card and of course told them of my Titanic lineage. I think my passage into this inner sanctum was eventually eased by the fact that I decided to buy myself a small souvenir of my time in New York in the form of a pair of earrings. The door to the jewellery manager’s office miraculously opened on presentation of my credit card. Such is the way of America.

Returning to the Tourism Ireland gig, a lot of people worked extremely hard to put the event together. Musicians and dancers performed at early hours of the morning, tour guides offered virtual tours of their routes, museum staff spent hours dressed in period costume and we all attempted to keep a smile on our faces despite our aching feet. Will Northern Ireland tourism reap the rewards in tourist numbers in the next few years? I remain to be convinced. There is a hard road ahead to persuade the travelling masses that Ireland continues north beyond Newry and that Belfast did actually build the Titanic. We need to build on the momentum which began last week.