Comment: The Bay of Pigs

Donald Trump has left Ireland but his people are still here. 

Earlier this month the president of the United States visited his golf course in Doonbeg. Before making the journey to Clare, tánaiste Simon Harris and taoiseach Micheál Martin welcomed him to Dublin. 

Martin spent some time at a press conference at Farmleigh House reminding everyone about one of his favourite subjects: the historic ties between Ireland and the US.  He mostly sat quietly as Trump spoke. At one point a simpering Martin affirmed his support for Trump’s so-called “peace plan” in Gaza, but also made sure to tell the crowd that earlier that day he’d mentioned the need for aid to enter the  region. (He did not, as he later admitted, use the word “genocide” when discussing it.) “We’re gonna get it done,” the president said. Elsewhere Harris assured journalists he didn’t really mean it when he referred to Trump as “an awful gowl” a few years ago. 

As Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael ingratiated themselves to their boss, the man who determines what is politically possible here, thousands of protesters marched in Dublin and Clare. At least 30 groups and parties took part, according to RTÉ. “There is no public appetite for this visit which is just a glorified golf trip for Mr Trump", said Social Democrats foreign affairs spokesperson Patricia Stephenson, as quoted by the national broadcaster in a report on the demonstration, which also included remarks from Sinn Féin. “It is right and proper that there will be protests at this visit,” said its representative. “People are right to protest at every turn when international law is being violated in such a brazen and sustained way.”   

However there was a group thrilled to see Donald Trump: the grunting pigs in the Doonbeg residents’ bar, who erupted with cheers and chants when their king waddled past, surrounded by his security detail. Some shouted “four more years” before the room broke into the Fields of Athenry. There was a pathos to the moment, its summation of Irish-American relations: minions singing a song about a famine victim banished to a penal colony by the empire responsible for that famine, as they celebrated the presence of a man who has sponsored another one in Gaza. 

‘I think he majored on peace’ 

There is a tension between the image of Ireland we present to the world – a place that stands for human rights and the rule of law – and the reality of our subservience to US power. This results in the repurposing of symbols and iconography associated with Irish identity to curry favour with Washington: the annual passing of the shamrocks at the White House,  a tourism industry that uses outdated, colonial era stereotypes in its marketing material or the unedifying  scenes in Doonbeg.  

Other times the contradictions of the Free State are worse than embarrassing, like intervening in South Africa’s International Court of Justice case accusing Israel of genocide while continuing to facilitate its slaughter of Palestinians by allowing the US military to use Shannon Airport as a de facto base. And in a world dominated by an openly criminal US concerned above all with violence and  plunder, these contradictions follow our political leaders wherever they go. 

Not long after his visit to Doonbeg, Trump went to a meeting of the UN General Assembly. There he gave a speech threatening to “annihilate” a country of 93 million people, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and falsely claimed to have “ended the war” in Gaza. Asked by media if Trump was a peacemaker or warmonger, Micheál Martin – who was there, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs, to help highlight the importance of “ multilateralism and the international legal order” –  said the world had seen “both Trumps”. The Irish Independent reported he also said, “I think he majored on peace quite significantly in terms of his contribution.” 

Yesterday Martin made his own address to the General Assembly. “We, the collective international community, have failed Palestine,” he said. “The situation in Gaza remains an affront to all that is decent. How can we tolerate a situation where civilians are so desperate for shelter that they have to make their homes in war-damaged and unsafe buildings? Where eight children died because one of them collapsed. Where the most basic humanitarian aid – food and shelter – is deliberately impeded.” 

The taoiseach went on to say that when the “full truth” of the atrocity in Gaza – where according to conservative estimates at least 73,658 people have been killed since October 2023 – is revealed, it will “shame the world,” adding that “nobody will be able to say that we did not know.” 

Martin is correct. The full truth of what has happened in Palestine will leave an indelible mark on humanity. And when the full truth is known it will show that Martin’s words were meaningless – that when a genocide took place, he was right there, rutting in the Doonbeg pig pen, delighted to be in the presence of the man responsible for it.