Ireland is about the same size as West Virginia, White House correspondents were informed in briefing books when accompanying President Clinton on his last Irish trip. But they have more in common than just size.
With its mountains, valleys, rivers and forests, West Virginia attracted many Irish settlers before the United States won its independence. They were mainly Scots-Irish Presbyterians, as those who came from Ulster in those days are still described.
They were hardy people to survive the crossing of the seemingly endless ranges of the Allegheny mountains and the encounters with hostile Indians, bears and sickness.
Later their descendants, further toughened by working in the coal mines, would be described as the best fighting men in the US expeditionary force which fought in the first World War in France.
But if you travel along the Ohio River which is the western boundary of West Virginia, you will come across another Irish connection - this time with Co Kerry and the Blennerhasset family from around Tralee and Killorglin. Blennerhasset Island lies in the middle of the river where it flows past Parkersburg and therein lies a story.
If you can believe one of the guide books, "no other love story in West Virginia history approaches its fame, passion, mystery, glamour and adventure, nor holds the enduring appeal of the Blennerhassets' romance.
"Their saga - in terms of starcrossed fate and lost fortune - reached the drama of a Greek tragedy". It is also a story which is "deeply American, connected inextricably to events that shaped this country's history, the most celebrated tale in Ohio Valley folklore". You can walk through the Blennerhasset mansion which the lovers, Harman and Margaret, built on the island with the proceeds of the family estate, Conway Castle, Killorglin, in 1798. The original Palladian structure was burned down in 1811 but has been faithfully restored, and thousands of visitors each year hear the story of Harman and Margaret.
There was a dark secret. As well as husband and wife, they were also uncle and niece. This explains why they had to sell up and leave Ireland. Harman, who had studied law at King's Inns, also had a shadowy connection with the United Irishmen and was a classmate of Robert Emmett at Trinity College Dublin.
So he was ripe for another conspiracy when Aaron Burr called one day in 1805 to their "Paradise Island" and talked about a madcap scheme to chase the Spaniards out of Texas and Mexico and establish an empire west of the Mississippi. Burr had recently been vice-president of the US under Thomas Jefferson but was in virtual disgrace for killing in a duel another hero of the American Revolution, Alexander Hamilton.
Before Harman realised what he was into, he and Burr were wanted for treason as the suspicious Jefferson saw in their scheme a plot to dismember the young American republic.
They were locked up for months in Richmond penitentiary in Virginia but Burr eventually was found not guilty of treason and the charges against Harman were dropped.
He and Margaret then tried running a cotton plantation in Mississippi not far from New Orleans. But the war of 1812 wrecked the project and they set out for Canada where Harman practised law in Montreal while Margaret tried to publish her poetry. Nothing worked, however, and they sailed for England with their youngest son in 1825, becoming dependent on Harman's sister, Avice, for accommodation in Bath and later Guernsey, where he died in 1831.
Margaret inscribed on his tombstone that "While in America at one time he owned a most beautiful island in the Ohio River which still bears his name . . . Strangers, pass not by without dropping a tear."
Margaret, a woman of great heart, went back to America in 1840 to seek compensation from Congress for the damage done to their island home by drunken soldiers. One of her supporters in this battle was Robert Addis Emmett, nephew of the patriot. She died in New York before Congress made any decision.
Recently her body was brought back to her beloved island where she now lies beside her daughter Margaret who died in infancy. Visitors are shown where a new tombstone will be erected near the mansion where she and Harman entertained such figures as the future King Charles X of France and the homely Johnny Apple seed.
After crossing the Ohio by the Blennerhasset paddle boat, you can stay in Parkersburg in the Blennerhasset Hotel where the lobby mirror used to be protected by a steel guard from the street shootings when things were livelier in the booming oil town.
In America, the main Blennerhasset line died out with the deaths of Harman and Margaret's children. But there are plenty of cousins around Tralee and in Dublin. They would be proud of what West Virginia has done to preserve the memory of their courageous ancestors.