Donald Trump’s Affection for the Irish: Do They Have a Say in the Matter?

COMMENTARY

Ireland’s leader endures uncomfortable St. Paddy’s visit; no request for a Lucky Charms leprechaun jig was made

Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin presents President Trump with a bowl of clover during a St. Patrick’s Day event in the East Room of the White House, March 12, 2025.
(Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

A relative of mine in Ireland — who shall remain unnamed for fear they might come across this — recently messaged me to express a newfound sense of fear regarding America and Americans. (“Forgive my generalization,” they noted; I am considered, by another cousin’s definition, “almost Irish enough.”) The long-standing Irish jokes about being the 51st state or “just east of Boston” have lost their humor; the precarious status of a small, damp, and famously contentious island on the western edge of Europe, three-quarters of which has maintained a tense independence for the last century, suddenly felt uncertain.

This is the backdrop — albeit aside from the vastly larger and more disconcerting global scenario — in which Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin (the prime minister) made his customary St. Patrick’s visit to the White House last week, presenting Donald Trump with the traditional bowl of shamrock.

It went well enough, I suppose — if your expectations are low and you choose to overlook the complicated and often painful undercurrents. Martin is a soft-spoken, somewhat enigmatic figure with considerable political savvy who has made this journey twice before under different circumstances (specifically, during the previous president, whose name I can’t quite recall). I could delve into Ireland’s unique rotating-prime-minister system here, but it would still seem bewildering; it’s roughly equivalent to ensuring everyone gets orange slices.

While Martin lacks the hair to literally tug at his forelock in Trump’s presence, his role as supplicant — or traveling entertainer, an Irish tradition if there ever was one — was clear to all. At least he wasn’t thrust out the door, Zelenskyy-style, nor was he coerced into relinquishing all rights to U2’s discography, Cillian Murphy’s future roles, and Sally Rooney’s next bestseller.

Underneath the surface, this intentionally bland event, centered on the uncontroversial bond between Ireland and the U.S. through ancestry, history, culture, and trade, carried much deeper significance. My cousin didn’t need to elaborate that the Irish economy has grown excessively reliant on high-tech and pharmaceutical exports to the U.S. and is almost uniquely susceptible to the tariffs imposed by Trump. Martin’s calm, respectful, responsible-adult demeanor — he was previously a teacher — was perceived back home as critical to the country’s future.

Essentially, Ireland can’t afford not to be an American client state — and unlike Britain, France, and Germany, can’t even pretend otherwise — and everyone in the Oval Office last Wednesday recognized it. But if Ireland’s radically asymmetric relationship with the U.S. is distinctive, the crisis it represents is truly global, affecting many other small to medium-sized nations. This episode highlighted some inherent contradictions in Irish national identity and Ireland’s place in the world. It also illustrated Donald Trump’s “personalist” strongman regime in action — operating in a mode of relative benevolence, but with its incoherent mixture of isolationism and imperialism, its willful and self-destructive ignorance, and its increasingly overt racism on display.

Irish media worked to uplift national spirit in the face of this humiliating encounter, commending Martin for not completely abasing himself or groveling on the Oval Office floor and for managing to keep quiet during an extended Trump monologue about a vast array of topics: the mighty influence of tariff policy, the unfairness of the European Union, and his deep affection for Ireland (whether Trump understands that Ireland is a part of the EU remains unclear); Rosie O’Donnell’s reported move to Ireland (Martin feigned ignorance but knew), and the assertion that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “used to be Jewish” but has “become a Palestinian.” (Fact check! The Washington Post confirms that Schumer is still Jewish.)

Martin adeptly avoided some uncomfortable topics related to the war in Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza, primarily by praising Trump as a possible peacemaker and steering the conversation towards the president’s “stunning” golf resort in County Clare. JD Vance likely knows that Ireland fully supports the EU’s pro-Zelenskyy policies and has backed the Palestinian cause for decades, partly due to historical connections. (Anti-colonial sentiments are deeply ingrained in Irish national identity.) But such information would only have confused Trump and complicated the shamrock-fueled camaraderie, and Vance — a Roman Catholic convert, after all — beamed silently from the sofa.

“I believe the Irish love Trump,” the president proclaimed, seemingly out of context. Martin did not challenge his statement, and Trump appeared blissfully unaware that officials from Sinn Féin, Ireland’s left-wing opposition party, had declined this year’s invitation to Washington. The feedback from Martin’s political opponents was less than favorable: Richard Boyd Barrett, a socialist member of Dáil Éireann (Ireland’s parliament), chastised the taoiseach for “utterly pathetic plámásing,” an Irish term signifying obsequious flattery. Another opposition figure criticized Martin for laughing at Trump’s awkward joke about Ireland’s housing crisis; it could be argued that laughter in that moment was purely a matter of survival.

On the brighter side, Trump had evidently received phonetic instructions for pronouncing “taoiseach” (TEE-shuk, roughly) and Martin’s first name, which is closer to “MEE-hall” than “Miguel,” as Fox News rendered it. He did not ask Martin to dance the Lucky Charms leprechaun jig, nor did he indulge in blatantly offensive stereotypes about Ireland or its people while expressing affection. Nevertheless, the entirety of the event was steeped in the insidious narrative of Irish exceptionalism, the belief that the inhabitants of the Emerald Isle are a loquacious, fiery, often vexing, and universally charming people — who are also, let’s be honest, predominantly white and English-speaking (with the exception of some oddly-pronounced names). One can’t help but ponder the cognitive dissonance present in Trump’s 2018 and 2019 meetings with former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who is both multiracial and gay.

In retrospect, let me amend the “not blatantly offensive” assertion: When asked by a reporter about his favorite Irish person, Trump briefly seemed bewildered, undoubtedly mentally sorting through a list that included Samuel Beckett, Pierce Brosnan, Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries, and Uncle O’Grimacey of Shamrock Shake fame before landing on “Conor.” That would be mixed martial artist Conor McGregor, who, as it turns out, was recently found liable for sexual assault in a civil trial. Isn’t that an interesting coincidence?

Here’s the reality regarding the maddening narrative of Irish exceptionalism, which can easily be weaponized for racist ends, whether overtly or subtly: it is both a fictional construct and a crucial aspect of Irish identity. All Irish people (including the “almost-Irish” like myself) understand that the romanticized stereotypes of Irishness serve as a form of global currency, often advantageous in economic, diplomatic, and romantic contexts, and are more than willing to exploit them as needed.

This dynamic is precisely why Micheál Martin found himself in the Oval Office presenting a potted plant to America’s catastrophically dysfunctional president, as the elected leader of a peculiar little island nation whose only power resides in cultural influence. It’s an island nation that has endured centuries under the thumb of a neighboring superpower, now positioned as a privileged subordinate to yet another.

Iceland truly is unique, or at the very least anomalous, in numerous ways. It certainly wasn’t the only “white” European nation to be conquered and colonized — Norway, Poland, and the Baltic states might have something to say about that — but it may be the only one whose native culture and language were so extensively obliterated and replaced. (While the Irish language persists and many Irish people can speak or understand it to some extent, it will likely never return to daily usage outside a few isolated regions and among circles of enthusiasts.)

I see no issue with interpreting that unusual history as a source of strength, or even a point of pride, and in attempting to apply its lessons elsewhere. The trouble with Irish “specialness” arises when it is mistakenly regarded as inherently virtuous or wise or as an automatic sense of grievance that can all too easily morph into xenophobia or racism. (Fewer Irish Americans appear to be in Trump’s circle this time around, but his first administration resembled bingo night in a Queens church basement: Mike Pence, Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn, Mick Mulvaney, Sean Spicer, and Kellyanne Conway, to name a few.)

Irish history does not, I hasten to add, guarantee automatic solidarity with oppressed peoples globally. Some aspects of the Irish experience are indeed akin to those of African Americans, Native Americans, and other indigenous or colonized groups around the world. For example, India’s independence movement was closely tied with Ireland’s, drawing inspiration from the methods of civil disobedience and guerrilla warfare that led to Irish independence in the 1920s. As a young activist in Paris, future Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh followed the Irish rebellion closely and was reportedly inspired by the legendary Irish hunger striker Terence MacSwiney.

I need not reiterate that while similarities exist, the Irish experience diverges significantly from those examples, for reasons that are, so to speak, readily apparent. White privilege was not conferred upon the Irish automatically or all at once; throughout much of the 20th century, British attitudes towards Ireland could be accurately described as racist, and a faint legacy of prejudice can still be detected today. Indeed, modern stereotypes that affirm Irish identity as a boozy and sentimental tribe of poets, dreamers, and fighters closely resemble older, more negative stereotypes, rendered charming rather than threatening.

However, Donald Trump would never refer to Ireland as a “s**thole country” (even if the Ireland I recall from the early ‘70s might have come close). The intertwined Irish economic booms of this century have predominantly sprung from the island’s status as a hub for American industry and investment, with a well-educated, English-speaking workforce and a favorable tax structure. Irish workers are certainly compensated more generously than their counterparts in Indonesia or Cambodia, but U.S. executives love to visit, the golf is extraordinary, the pubs are vibrant, and the people — do you really want me to finish that sentence?

I wouldn’t accuse Micheál Martin of engaging in profound philosophical reflections on Irish identity or history during his Oval Office ordeal. His father, Paddy Martin, was a well-regarded boxer (which seemed to please Trump), and Martin attempted to defend his position without losing face or aggravating his opponent. He demonstrated a form of “plámásing” — an ingrained skill in a culture accustomed to being seen as lovable underdogs — but what other option did he have? What I observed was a man who was leveraging the myth of Irish exceptionalism while simultaneously being trapped by it.

Trump told Martin that he had no intention of harming Ireland; he loves the nation. The Irish leader left for a series of fundraising events with affluent Irish Americans, believing he had navigated the encounter successfully.

Minutes later, Trump informed reporters in the White House corridor that he intended to impose a 200 percent tariff on alcoholic beverages imported from the EU, a potentially devastating option for Ireland’s brewing and distilling sectors. We understand: He’s getting back at the French, lol. Of course, Trump is likely ignorant of where Guinness and Jameson whiskey originate, and it doesn’t matter to him. He’d be happy to arrange a side deal with the Irish if possible.