The scene was familiar: Donald Trump received his guest in the Oval Office, Kublai Khan style. The media gathered around, cameras flashing. The guest needed something from him, or depended on him in some way – they always do, it’s America. Trade, defense, whatever. Trump demanded something from them in return – the ritual of humiliation. Volodymyr Zelensky was the first to suffer, and since then every leader has feared him.
On St. Patrick’s Day, Irish Chief Taoiseach Micheál Martin was in the hot seat. Few countries need more and have less to offer Trump than Ireland. Its economic prosperity has been built on a careful balance between Britain as an export market and foreign direct investment from US multinationals (mainly pharmaceutical and technology majors) attracted by low corporate tax and access to the EU.
So when Trump returned to Britain, Martin was forced to walk a tightrope. The president complained about Keir Starmer’s lack of zeal abroad, gesturing to a bust of Winston Churchill as if looking for a more docile past. Here, Martin could easily have said nothing—offered neutral vagueness, bowed his head, and waited for the moment to pass. Instead, he did something strikingly silent. He stepped in and directly supported Starmer.
Ireland’s relationship with the UK is vital, Martin said, and Starmer has helped restore it. He reminded Trump that Ireland has “a different perspective” on Winston Churchill. He then stuck his neck out for the man at number 10 today. Starmer is “an honest and sound person,” he said, with whom Trump can work.
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It wasn’t exactly “I’m Spartacus,” but mildly opposing the president in the Oval Office takes some courage.
Martin likely enjoys some protection from Trump’s wrath thanks to the continued political utility of the Irish in America, but this bloc is decreasing. Irish Americans, once a key Democratic demographic, have recently shifted. Trump himself has been remarkably candid about the transactional value of that support. Last March he declared it “Irish American Heritage Month,” adding: “They’re a wonderful people. And they voted for me in huge numbers, so I like them even more.” The joke comes because it’s not entirely a joke.
Martin’s goal was modest: to survive the encounter. Get through 30 minutes with no major mistakes, no red flags for the bull, a smooth visa application here, a careful mention of fees there. Hand over the shamrock bowl – there is no Boeing 747but symbolic enough – and go home with your dignity intact, or at least not completely naked.
If Martin’s cautious approach represents Ireland as it is today, then a scene elsewhere in American politics showed a very different vision for Ireland. Asked about Irish unity, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani demurred, instead offering a vision of Ireland closer to Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn than contemporary reality. The Irish built New York, he said; they dug the tunnels and raised the skyscrapers. It was a speech less about Ireland than about America, and about a vision of it as a pluralistic immigrant society bound by bonds of working-class solidarity. Pressed again later, Mamdani used the language of the Good Friday Agreement and its consent principle. Irish self-determination is for the Irish to decide, he said; a cautious neutrality more typical of British Labor politicians than of their American counterparts.
In 2018, then-Mayor of New York Bill de Blasio described St. Patrick’s Day as “Gerry Adams Day.” Previous mayors navigated Irish America as a homogenous voting bloc, one with clear demands and sensitivities tied to events at home. By contrast, in Mamdan’s St. Patrick’s Day message, his third attempt to answer the Irish question, Ireland appears not as a nation of interests but as a moral symbol. Mamdani draws a line from St. Patrick in the fifth century to the present day. The Irish, having suffered colonization at the hands of Britain, have become those who “weep with those who weep,” with a special authority to speak for the colonized.
This helps explain the divergence between Martin’s and Mamdan’s Ireland. In the Oval Office, Ireland is a small, export-driven economy negotiating with a superpower, acutely aware of its vested interests and dependence on American money. In American progressive rhetoric, it is a historical allegory for more modern causes. The two Irelands coexist uneasily. One hands over a bowl of shamrocks and hopes not to provoke a charge, while the other acts as a sort of moral conscience for the West.
St. Patrick’s Day is where they meet. It’s an event that flatters both sides: the US celebrates a (white) immigrant success story, while Ireland gets a seat at the table. But underneath it all lies a more complicated reality. Irish unity no longer motivates the American left. Rather, it is a symbol. And, for one meeting every March, Ireland is also a small country standing against the most powerful country in the world, hoping the invitations keep coming.
(Further reading: Ireland gambles with Catherine Connolly)
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