This year was somewhat different from all previous years because this particular President, Donald Trump, cares less about Ireland, her culture, and the situation in the six counties than most of his predecessors. Yes, he went through the niceties of pretending to accept graciously the bowl of Shamrock in much the same way as did Joe Biden (who thinks he’s Irish) last year when he was President but the gesture clearly lacked the sincerity of Biden and Obama before him or even George W. Bush in the early 2000s.
Trump was obviously, to anybody who watched the ceremony, going through the motions and not over convincingly either. This ceremony or farce took place a couple of days before the main event on 17th March, Saint-Patricks-day, when it is traditional for the President to invite the Irish Taoiseach and Tanaiste to the White House as guests of honour. This year Trump decided to invite, as his guest, former Mixed Martial Arts fighter Conor McGregor, claiming Mr McGregor to be his “favourite Irishman” which was a bit of a kick in the teeth for the 26 Counties political leaders! White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed; “the administration could not think of a better guest to have with us on St. Patricks Day”. Little wonder she gave this description as both Trump and McGregor are convicted felons!
McGregor entered the scene with a shout of “happy Saint Patricks Day America” before he went on stage in his usual flamboyant manner showing off as he once did before an MMA fight. He then went into a tirade of attacks on the 26 county governments policies on immigration and lack of concern for the Irish People shown by this administration. He claimed; “Ireland and America are siblings” and went on to say; “the United States will look after its little brother”, meaning Donald Trump will look after Irish racists whose policies the President in many respects shares. His condemnation of the 26 County States Government went on to say; “issues the people of Ireland face the Irish Government has long since abandoned the people of Ireland”. He continued with this tirade of racist rubbish which, alas, many political illiterates will agree with: “The illegal immigration racket is running ravage around the country, Ireland is losing its Irishness”.
McGregor entered the scene with a shout of “happy Saint Patricks Day America” before he went on stage in his usual flamboyant manner showing off as he once did before an MMA fight. He then went into a tirade of attacks on the 26 county governments policies on immigration and lack of concern for the Irish People shown by this administration. He claimed; “Ireland and America are siblings” and went on to say; “the United States will look after its little brother”, meaning Donald Trump will look after Irish racists whose policies the President in many respects shares. His condemnation of the 26 County States Government went on to say; “issues the people of Ireland face the Irish Government has long since abandoned the people of Ireland”. He continued with this tirade of racist rubbish which, alas, many political illiterates will agree with: “The illegal immigration racket is running ravage around the country, Ireland is losing its Irishness”.
These comments and attacks on the official political representatives of the Irish people must have been music to the ears of President Donald Trump who himself hates people of different cultures including, if he’s honest, the ‘Irish undocumented’.
The irony is the USA including its President are a nation of immigrants. They are from all corners of the globe from China to Europe including Ireland and Trump himself has Scottish roots. Yet, here we have a political illiterate condemning immigration into Ireland when the people he was addressing were, every one of them, immigrants at some point in their history. In fact in Ireland the Celts were not the indigenous people of the country. No, they came from central Europe when the Germanic tribes from the north displaced them. The truth is, and this applies to any country on earth, none of us can claim not to descend from people who came from somewhere else and this includes Ireland. For example, in 1171, King Henry II through a charter granted Dublin to his “men of Bristol”. The charter stated it was for ‘Bristolians to colonise the city’ and many of them did as people from Bristol came to Dublin. This means today, many Dubliners, including possibly Conor McGregor, may be by ancestry Bristolians. if this were to be the case which football team Conor, Bristol City or Bristol Rovers? Many of the original Anglo/Norman colonisers (not to be mistaken with the Tudor colonisers of 16th and 17th centuries) became known as ‘the Old English’ and these people intermarried with the native Irish adopting Irish customs and clothing and having families which were ‘more Irish than the Irish’. This led to the ‘Statute of Kilkenny 1366’ but I’m deviating from the topic under discussion. The comments made by the former MMA fighter may have appealed to the older generation of Irish Americans who cling on to Eamon de Valera’s view of a Gaelic Catholic Ireland steeped in religious beliefs, practices and superstitions but modern Ireland is multi-cultural and has many different races and ethnicities in its population.
The Irish Tanaiste, (simple) Simon Harris, one of those who should have been a guest of the President along with Taoiseach, Micheal Martin, on Saint Patricks Day, stated; “Conor McGregor does not represent Ireland” and continued; “the President can invite whoever he likes to his home” which was a diplomatic way of pretending he was not feeling humiliated. Nice try, Simon, but through that brave face you posed the reality could not be hidden. It would appear this US President has a fetish almost about humiliating other world leaders particularly those from smaller countries like the Ukraine and now, it appears, Ireland. He humiliated Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, publicly on world television a couple of weeks back and now, in a less obvious way, Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin and Tanaiste Simon Harris. Perhaps you should not have gone lads after all you knew Trump can’t stand your policies! Ireland “you have a target on your back” Trump recently commented!
The Irish Tanaiste, (simple) Simon Harris, one of those who should have been a guest of the President along with Taoiseach, Micheal Martin, on Saint Patricks Day, stated; “Conor McGregor does not represent Ireland” and continued; “the President can invite whoever he likes to his home” which was a diplomatic way of pretending he was not feeling humiliated. Nice try, Simon, but through that brave face you posed the reality could not be hidden. It would appear this US President has a fetish almost about humiliating other world leaders particularly those from smaller countries like the Ukraine and now, it appears, Ireland. He humiliated Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, publicly on world television a couple of weeks back and now, in a less obvious way, Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin and Tanaiste Simon Harris. Perhaps you should not have gone lads after all you knew Trump can’t stand your policies! Ireland “you have a target on your back” Trump recently commented!
There is an old adage, ‘do not put your shovel where there is no shit.’ Martin and Harris would claim they were looking after Irish investments and Irish jobs, people employed by US companies in the 26 Counties. Also the millions of Irish ‘undocumented’ (illegal immigrants) in the USA, the same kind of people McGregor was condemning for being in Ireland - what hypocrisy! Another point of observation, the 26 County administration claim to support and recognise the state of Palestine. If this is genuinely the case what were the two leading lights of this administration doing licking the arse of Israel's largest arms supplier? Arms used to bomb the crap out of Gaza and Trump has pledged more arms for Israel to carry out more attacks on defenceless Palestinian women and children, a slight contradiction perhaps on behalf of the Irish leaders? He also wishes to colonise Gaza, making it a ‘US Riviera’ thus kicking out millions of Palestinians forever. Micheal Martin also claims he is defending jobs in Ireland of those employed by US business in the 26 County state who, Mr Martin would have us believe, may relocate in another country if he does not court the US President. This is, of course, nonsense as the low corporation tax, weak or non-existent trade unions, and a low paid yet highly educated workforce amassing huge profits for these US firms are the factors which dictate where these TNCs (Transnational Corporations) will locate irrespective of what Donald Trump says or doesn’t say. Business in the capitalist world is bigger than any world political leader.
Harris has recently spoke of “mutual respect” between the United Sates and “Ireland” which from where I’m sitting amounts to the 26-county administration showing the Trump government a grovelling lick arsing respect and Trump showing nothing but contempt in return. Mutual respect between any two countries must be a two-way street and this is very much a one-way avenue. Harris was referring to the Tariffs which Trump is threatening the European Union with and which the 26-county state are part of. Harris is giving the impression the present administration can do a separate deal outside the EU which, to my knowledge, they cannot!
Trump and McGregor share more than an agreement of far-right politics. They both have records for sex offences! ‘McGregor’s visit to the White House came months after he was found civilly liable in a High Court damages case in Dublin taken by a woman who accused him of rape. Nikita Hand, also known as Nikita Ni Laimhin, won her claim against McGregor after accusing the professional MMA fighter of raping her in a Dublin hotel in December 2018. Ms Hand, 35, was awarded damages and costs after a three-week trial last year in which the jury found him civilly liable for assault. A judge at the High Court in Dublin later said that the jury had conclusively determined that McGregor had raped Ms Hand’ (Irish Daily Mirror 18th March 2025). As can be gleaned by this quote Conor McGregor was lucky the case was a civil and not criminal trial thus allowing him to escape jail and being put on a sex offenders register. Ms Hand was awarded €248,000 for her ordeal at the hands of the former MMA fighter, payable by McGregor.
President Trump himself is no stranger to allegations of sexual misconduct and before his 2016 election tapes were produced on which Trump said; “they love it” referring to women being touched uninvited in sensitive places. In July 2006 Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Gregory Clifford), an American pornographic film star, met the future presidential hopeful at a celebrity golf tournament. Under oath Daniels said; “she was invited to dinner and to meet him at his hotel room”. Daniels testified that “Trump asked her many questions about her life”, and at some point, she told him she had “grown up poor”. She eventually used the bathroom in his hotel room, but on re-emerging “was surprised to find Trump stripped to his underwear sitting on the bed”. Obviously, Trump had more than dinner in mind and Daniels testified saying “I think we should go and moved towards the door” but Trump allegedly stood in her way saying in part, “this is the only way you’re getting out of the trailer park.” Apparently, they then had sex but Daniels said; “it wasn’t something I wanted.” Perhaps Trump has difficulty telling the difference between adult entertainment fantasy films and real life. Just because Stormy Daniels performs sexual gymnastics with different men in her pornographic films does not necessarily mean she does so in real life!
It must be wondered what the content of private conversation between ‘Don and Con’ was? Could the two sexual predators have discussed their conquests and bedroom antics, after they had sorted out the immigration problems as they see it? Well, there is an old saying, ‘birds of a feather flock together’ and this is certainly the case when speaking of Donald Trump and Conor McGregor! From a political point of view and after the protocol of Saint Patrick's week was out of the way it is clear the US President would rather have spent the 17th March in the company of a fellow alleged sex predator than with the political leaders of the 26 County Irish state!
Harris has recently spoke of “mutual respect” between the United Sates and “Ireland” which from where I’m sitting amounts to the 26-county administration showing the Trump government a grovelling lick arsing respect and Trump showing nothing but contempt in return. Mutual respect between any two countries must be a two-way street and this is very much a one-way avenue. Harris was referring to the Tariffs which Trump is threatening the European Union with and which the 26-county state are part of. Harris is giving the impression the present administration can do a separate deal outside the EU which, to my knowledge, they cannot!
Trump and McGregor share more than an agreement of far-right politics. They both have records for sex offences! ‘McGregor’s visit to the White House came months after he was found civilly liable in a High Court damages case in Dublin taken by a woman who accused him of rape. Nikita Hand, also known as Nikita Ni Laimhin, won her claim against McGregor after accusing the professional MMA fighter of raping her in a Dublin hotel in December 2018. Ms Hand, 35, was awarded damages and costs after a three-week trial last year in which the jury found him civilly liable for assault. A judge at the High Court in Dublin later said that the jury had conclusively determined that McGregor had raped Ms Hand’ (Irish Daily Mirror 18th March 2025). As can be gleaned by this quote Conor McGregor was lucky the case was a civil and not criminal trial thus allowing him to escape jail and being put on a sex offenders register. Ms Hand was awarded €248,000 for her ordeal at the hands of the former MMA fighter, payable by McGregor.
President Trump himself is no stranger to allegations of sexual misconduct and before his 2016 election tapes were produced on which Trump said; “they love it” referring to women being touched uninvited in sensitive places. In July 2006 Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Gregory Clifford), an American pornographic film star, met the future presidential hopeful at a celebrity golf tournament. Under oath Daniels said; “she was invited to dinner and to meet him at his hotel room”. Daniels testified that “Trump asked her many questions about her life”, and at some point, she told him she had “grown up poor”. She eventually used the bathroom in his hotel room, but on re-emerging “was surprised to find Trump stripped to his underwear sitting on the bed”. Obviously, Trump had more than dinner in mind and Daniels testified saying “I think we should go and moved towards the door” but Trump allegedly stood in her way saying in part, “this is the only way you’re getting out of the trailer park.” Apparently, they then had sex but Daniels said; “it wasn’t something I wanted.” Perhaps Trump has difficulty telling the difference between adult entertainment fantasy films and real life. Just because Stormy Daniels performs sexual gymnastics with different men in her pornographic films does not necessarily mean she does so in real life!
It must be wondered what the content of private conversation between ‘Don and Con’ was? Could the two sexual predators have discussed their conquests and bedroom antics, after they had sorted out the immigration problems as they see it? Well, there is an old saying, ‘birds of a feather flock together’ and this is certainly the case when speaking of Donald Trump and Conor McGregor! From a political point of view and after the protocol of Saint Patrick's week was out of the way it is clear the US President would rather have spent the 17th March in the company of a fellow alleged sex predator than with the political leaders of the 26 County Irish state!
What happened on 17th March 2025 was a deliberate rebuke of the 26 County administration by the White House with Conor McGregor receiving more coverage than Micheal Martin or Simon Harris. McGregor conducted what amounted to his own press conference in which he attacked the 26 County Government's policies. It was a humiliation for Mr Martin and Mr Harris who, love or loath their policies, are the political leaders of the 26 Counties. It was typical of Trump's far-right political agenda and McGregor fitted the bill perfectly.
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| Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist. |
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