COLUMN: Did we really invite Donald Trump at all?

 

Having been in the Oval Office when the invitation was issued in 2017, working for Today FM at the time, I’ve always got the impression that Donald Trump’s invitation to Ireland was fairly unplanned. There had been no suggestion, in advance, that Trump would be asked to come here.

But reporters like myself simply lobbed in the unscripted question, Trump appeared to assume a visit would be no problem (I don’t know if you’ve heard, but apparently he owns a golf course in Doonbeg?), and Enda Kenny then mopped up the situation by saying it was only fair to invite Trump after he was kind enough to maintain the St Patrick’s Day tradition.

Bear in mind: this exchange with reporters took place before Kenny and Trump’s meeting formally got underway, not after it. There would have been very little opportunity for Kenny to extend the same invitation to Trump, before those pesky reporters had asked about the prospect of the US President following us on the journey home.

Perhaps it was because he had already visited, but there was never the same obsession with asking Barack Obama when he might be making his next journey home. But two months into the tenure of a new president, it was all anyone wanted to ask – and there was a distinct impression that Kenny was forced into inviting Trump, simply to justify the questions from the press. Lo and behold, 20 months later, now he’s coming to Irish shores.

The chances are, of course, that he won’t be making any public appearance of the likes of Obama in College Green in 2011. In fact, we can look at his most recent visit to London, where he was pointedly kept at long distance from possible protests.

Of course that won’t matter a jot. He’ll tell the world that the crowds turned out in force to greet him, not to jeer him, and that the Irish people love him and think he’s terrific, and tens of millions of his domestic supporters will lap it all up faithfully.

There are none so blind as those who do not want to see.

Good week: Bobby Kerr

In a week where two other Dragons Den colleagues joined Gavin Duffy in the race for the Áras, the Insomnia founder pulled a PR masterstroke. Throughout the latter half of the week, Newstalk ran promotions for a major announcement about Kerr’s “run for the Áras”, to be announced at the top of his Saturday morning programme. Those eager to hear his news were met with an off-kilter surprise: the onetime Dragon is indeed running… past the Áras, as he’s signing up to run the 2019 Dublin Marathon.

Bad week: Brendan Howlin

Alan Kelly’s almost-heave launched on Friday brings a lot of tension to the surface. A quiet civil war has been brewing within the Labour party for months now, with members anxious about the performance in the opinion polls. Certainly, the most recent ones (3%!) suggest the party has plenty to be anxious about. But while Kelly might be short on allies inside Leinster House, plenty of councillors (i.e. aspiring TDs) are on his side. These Labour pains will take more than a few hours to get rid of.

READ Gavan Reilly's full column every Tuesday only in the Meath Chronicle