Suzanne Harrington: Pragmatic diplomacy, or appeasing a fascist?

Taoiseach Micheál Martin (left) with US president Donald Trump in the White House at last year's St Patrick's Day reception. While it may be seen as pragmatic diplomacy to go, how will it seem from a future perspective?

I know it was Valentine’s on Saturday, and yay for love, even if it comes in cliches of red and pink and sold back to us for profit — we all need all the love we can get, in these unlovely times of unfiltered hate. Yay for love, in all glorious guises.

But it’s next month’s shamrocks-are-green celebration which holds considerably more cultural heft than roses-are-red or violets-are-blue.

Like most things, St Patrick’s Day has become heavily politicised. Once an innocent Craggy Island-style parade you watched in the freezing rain with a green rosette pinned to your anorak, it is now an international behemoth, sponsored by Guinness and outsized leprechaun hats. A global celebration of, well, us.

And there’s a lot of us in the US. Since the 1950s, various Taoisigh have rocked up to the White House with a bowl of shamrock each March — an inoffensive and pleasant gesture celebrating the friendship between a small island and a vast country full of its descendants. This year Micheál Martin is set to carry on that tradition.

Should he, though? A recent Ireland Thinks poll found that 38% of us think he shouldn’t go. Last year, just 24% thought the Taoiseach should give the White House a swerve, but the past year’s events have significantly increased the don’t-go contingent. (54% think he should still go, and 8% don’t know).

Taoiseach Micheál Martin (right) with US president Donald Trump in the White House at last year's St Patrick's Day reception. A recent Ireland Thinks poll found that 38% of us think the Taoiseach shouldn’t go.

You can see the argument for going, for smiling at the cameras as you hand the shamrock over to the orange fascist. Keeping the peace, playing the game, not poking the beast, rattling the cage; enraging the bully, provoking tariffs or job cuts, or a full-scale ground invasion — whatever threat is being waved about this week. 

Turning up with the shamrock seems like hoping the playground bully won’t beat you up if you pre-empt it by giving him your lunch money before running away.

By going, the Taoiseach is protecting Irish interests, right? That seems to be the official line. But in protecting our interests, is he compromising our values?

YES, the Irish Government goes all over the world meeting all kinds of other governments who may not share our values — but the great difference is that the US is home to millions of Irish-identifying citizens, unlike say, China. And the US has gone rogue.

That bowl of shamrock now signifies appeasement. It glosses over the deadly Gestapo-like domestic terrorism of ICE, the ongoing US funding of Israel’s genocide, the outrageous threats to Greenland. The random attacks on Venezuela, Nigeria, Somalia, Iran, Yemen, Iraq. 

US president Donald Trump (centre), Taoiseach Micheál Martin (right) and his wife Mary O'Shea (left) at last year's St Patrick's Day reception in the White House. That bowl of shamrock now signifies appeasement. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP

On a more personal note, there’s the suppression of the Epstein files, the incitement of a mob to insurrection, the fraud charges. The list goes on. Talking about grabbing women by the pussy and mocking a disabled journalist now seem quaint by comparison.

While it may be seen as pragmatic diplomacy to go, how will it seem from a future perspective? History does not look kindly on appeasers; the appeasers of Hitler are not well remembered.

Ireland may be small and not terribly important to a megalomaniac monster, but we have core values. We have core principles. We don’t like bullies. We don’t need to appease a rogue regime out of fear, or out of tradition, or out of anything. We can give our shamrock to someone deserving it. We can do the right thing, rather than the craven thing.