The Trumps in Ireland: Off the wall

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar didn’t appear to be completely happy during his joint press conference at Shannon Airport with US President Donald Trump.

There are no prizes for guessing why he was probably thinking he would have preferred to be somewhere else.

Trump isn’t known for being too interested in detail, but all that talk of border walls and Britain’s exit from the European Union being “very, very good” for Ireland must have surprised Varadkar.

Yet, as Varadkar explained almost diplomatically, there are about 200 countries in the world, so it’s not possible for a US president to have an encyclopedic knowledge of all of them, even if he does own five-star golf resorts in some of them.

Border worries were put aside in Doonbeg, where villagers waved the Stars & Stripes and wore ‘Make America Great Again’ caps … a demonstration of Irish hospitality and a special greeting for Mr Trump’s sons, whose offer of drinks all round couldn’t be refused.

It was a reminder that whatever political differences there might be between our government and the man who sits in the Oval Office, Irish-American cultural ties endure.