By tradition, Irish politicians, north and south, are given privileged access to the White House for St Patrick’s Day celebrations.
There are a lot of Irish American voters so, in spite of DOGE and cost-cutting and Boston and New York voting Democrat, the great disrupter President Donald J Trump is still holding his own Paddy’s party next Wednesday, five days ahead of the actual day.
Trump also being Trump, the invitations are causing headaches for the potential guests.
Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of Sinn Fein and Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill, turned down their invitations before they even got one this year, taking “a principled stance against the mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from Gaza”.
The Democratic Unionist Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Emma Little-Pengelly, is flying over.
It is an invitation Irish leaders can’t refuse. No less than eight ministers from Dublin’s coalition government will be fanning out across the United States to join in the fun and promote trade.
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Prime Minister Micheal Martin faces an on-camera visit to the Oval Office.
Will he be greeted by nice Donald, like Macron and Starmer, or berated by nasty Donald, like Zelenskyy?
At least Trump has a golf course in Ireland, even though he seemed to lump it together with his property in the UK during the British prime minister’s audience.
Taoiseach Martin’s scheduled breakfast with JD Vance may prove even more daunting.
Vance claimed he didn’t mean the UK or France, but as a potential “security guarantee” to Ukraine, Ireland would fall right into the category scorned by the vice president of “some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years”.
Ireland is a proudly neutral country which has never fought a foreign war. Nor could it field the “20,000 troops” Vance considered less effective than giving “Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine”.
Ireland has the lowest defence spending in the European Union, around 0.2% of GDP.
The current minimum spending level stipulated for NATO members is 2%, Trump demanded 5%. But Ireland is not a NATO member.
Ireland is trying to adapt to the Trump administration’s inclination to turn its back on the defence of Europe, but Defence Minister Simon Harris admits it has “a lot of catching up to do”.
Irish rearmament is complicated by the conflicting demands of its constitutional neutrality, banning participation in military alliances, its membership of the European Union and even Northern Ireland’s membership of the UK.
Harris is also the leader of Fine Gael and deputy prime minister, or Tanaiste. He proposes to act “aggressively” to develop a defensive NATO-standard national war fighting capability.
As well as increasing force numbers, plans would also reportedly see the size of the navy increased to 12 ships. There have been incursions by Russian naval and civilian vessels into Ireland’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
Trans-Atlantic data cables vulnerable to sabotage are vital to the UK and Ireland as a high-tech hub. The Irish Air Corps will be renamed the Irish Air Force and the government wants to acquire fighter jets.
This plan will require additional funding. Fortunately, the Irish economy is one of the few in Europe which is currently not struggling.
Even with a stronger defence force it is far from certain whether Ireland would be able to make a significant contribution.
Until now Irish military commitments abroad have been strictly limited to peace keeping; for its size, Ireland has made a major contribution to UN blue beret forces such as UNIFIL in Lebanon. This has depended on permission from the UN Security Council.
In recent years Russia, one of the P5 permanent members on the council, has vetoed the establishment of such forces in areas where it had an interest – such as in Georgia in 2009.
The Irish government now proposes changing a so-called “triple lock” which prevents it from deploying more than 12 troops abroad without a vote by the UN Security Council, the Dail Eireann parliament and the government.
The deployment number is to be lifted to 50 and the role of the UN will be removed. This is hardly surprising given that Trump’s America is now voting the same as Russia and against its European allies.
“We don’t believe that Putin or other leaders should have a veto on whether our troops should be deployed,” Harris argues. “This is a new era in Europe in which Ireland also faces significant new security and defence challenges.”
Sinn Fein and other left-wing parties oppose these plans, which they say are steps towards abandoning neutrality – something Irish government ministers reject.
With the Fianna Fail-Fine Gael government behind them, they are likely to happen, bringing Ireland closer to both its EU allies and the United Kingdom.
Led by France and Germany, the latest European Union summit pledged to dramatically increase their defence spending, with proposals for a procurement fund and possibly a European army.
Both Finland and Sweden have abandoned their neutrality and joined NATO. Ireland has the option of doing likewise or not.
Austria, Malta, and Cyprus are militarily neutral, although the latter two host bases. Hungary is closer to Russia and Slovenia has also come under pressure from Moscow.
Ireland neutrality during the Second World War caused lasting bitterness with the UK, only dispelled by their mutual co-operation in the Northern Irish peace process.
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At the moment Ireland relies on the UK – for its air cover, the implicit protection of the nuclear deterrent and on Royal Navy maritime patrols in the increasingly contested Greenland-Iceland-UK gap through which hostile vessels venture.
The UK is upping its presence at navy and RAF bases, so far without controversy. British ground troop numbers, which were such a point of contention during The Troubles, have severely reduced since then.
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland is host to several major defence manufacturers. At prime minister’s questions this week, Starmer hailed the jobs and economic boost resulting from artillery shells made in Belfast being sent to Ukraine.
Enda Kenny was the last Irish prime minister to meet Trump for St Patrick’s Day in the Oval Office during his first presidential term.
The visit passed without incident largely because Kenny avoided controversy – mindful of the large number of Irish illegal immigrants working in the US.
Talking points with the prickly Americans have got even more sensitive since then. Ireland belongs to the EU which Trump claims is “ripping us off”.
Worse, Ireland by itself has a trade surplus with the US.
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This has already led to a spat in preliminary talks ahead of the visit. The official minutes produced by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio states that their phone call discussed how to “address the US-Ireland trade imbalance”.
Harris contradicts this version, insisting the imbalance “wasn’t specifically referenced”. You can bet it will be on Wednesday.
The return of Trump to the White House is tearing up relationships between old allies. Ireland faces some big questions about how to be safe in a more dangerous world.
The Irish visitors have little option but to grin and bear whatever happens in Washington DC next week, but this year the “craic” will not be enough to paper over widening cracks between the US and Europe.
