Most heads of state don’t enjoy an annual invitation to the Oval Office, but Ireland’s does. When prime minister Micheál Martin arrived for this year’s St. Patrick’s Day visit, he was warned about the Donald Trump-sized trap he was walking into.
Martin faced a “diplomatic balancing act” in talks with Trump, according to Reuters. Politico was more dire, writing that the meeting, normally a “diplomatic dream,” was this year “dangerous for Ireland’s America-fueled economy.” Martin, the outlet wrote, would be happy to merely “survive a brush with Trump.”
An Irish columnist at the event saw things differently. He told the Washington Free Beacon, which joined the White House press pool on Wednesday, that he expected the meeting to be friendly: Trump has a golf course in Ireland, after all, and “loves it.”
He was largely correct. Trump may have embodied the fighting Irish spirit throughout the meeting, but most of the…
