Donald Trump’s hotel in Doonbeg is booked solid for the week of the Irish Open next autumn. You can imagine the avalanche of spondulicks ready to pour into the US president’s coffers. A normal night there in September costs €1,414 for a “premiere suite” with a sea view and breakfast, according to online travel agency Sembo. Warmongering, it transpires, is no impediment to raking in the dosh.
A gag, doing the rounds since Trump’s army killed dozens of people while illegally snatching Nicolás Maduro and his wife, hails it as a historic first for a Co Clare hotelier to kidnap a country’s president. Patrons of his Irish establishment ought to hide their faces in shame as they enter and exit the premises.
Something has to be done about Trump. His sabre rattling is way past mere words. He gave a clue when he renamed the department of defence the department of war. He has been blowing up boats and their occupants in the Caribbean, conducting air strikes on Iran and Nigeria and entertaining Vladimir Putin and Binyamin Netanyahu – fugitives from the International Criminal Court – while salivating about owning Greenland. He wants to build a tourist resort in Gaza where he has appointed himself chairman of the so-called Board of Peace. He is now the de facto ruler of Venezuela and Gaza. Next stop Colombia? Mexico? Cuba? Iran? Greenland?
Newsflash! The dreaded future is here. Any speculation about Trump’s imperialistic ambitions is a wistful exercise in looking in the rear view mirror. He is on the march and Europe’s yellow-bellied leaders are holding his coat while he orders Volodymyr Zelenskiy to give a chunk of his beleaguered country to Putin. Ireland’s military neutrality never seems wiser than when Nato’s leader, Mark Rutte, bends to Trump and simpers “daddy”.
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In a world committed to law and order, the International Criminal Court would issue an arrest warrant for Trump, but even that forum may be wary after he slapped sanctions on members of its judiciary and staff. There have been times in the past year when the thought has struck that Americans who were not among the 77.3 million who voted for him, nor the 42 per cent who still approve of him, needed saving by the rest of the world. But it is abundantly clear the rest of the world is under greatest threat now.
[ Trump wants Greenland - what’s to stop him taking it?Opens in new window ]
Trump is a hypocrite. He demands that Ukraine hold elections amid the deadly chaos of the Russian invasion while deeming peacetime Venezuela unfit for voters to go to the polls. He denounces European internet regulation as censorship while threatening to refuse entry to the US if one’s phone has a critical comment about him, and ignores Israel’s ban on journalists entering Gaza. Having inspired a lethal riot on Capitol Hill with the deceit that he won the 2020 presidential election, he cites Maduro’s theft of Venezuela’s 2024 election as a reason for kidnapping him.
Trump has expressed a wish to attend the Irish Open at his Clare golf course. Failing his arrest and transfer to The Hague for trial, Establishment Ireland is willing to tolerate his threatening – and yet tedious – presence. There have been calls for the withdrawal of Doonbeg’s selection to host the Irish Open but that is as likely to happen as Pete Hegseth being admitted to Mensa.
Ireland is not safe from Trump’s vengeance. He says we took American companies and he wants them back. He says the EU sued Apple in Ireland “to run the European Union”. He says concern for an endangered snail in Doonbeg’s sand dunes interfered with his business plans. He says Conor McGregor is his favourite Irish person. Meanwhile, US arms and troops routinely transit Shannon Airport as if Clare is an outpost of Washington DC.
When Doonbeg was chosen as the Irish Open venue by the DP World Tour, Eric Trump, son and caretaker of the family business, said the Irish Government should lavish as much money on it as the €200 million it is spending on preparations for next year’s Ryder Cup in Adare. I swear, if the Government gives him one red cent, there will – to borrow from the Trump vernacular – be hell to pay.
Activist and feminist Rita Mae Brown defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. By that definition, Europe’s leaders are certifiable. How much proof do they need that their sycophancy only emboldens the bully? He taunts them for being “weak”; mocks and mimics Emmanuel Macron at a GOP retreat this week.
And still, when he says he wants Greenland, they mumble that nobody wants to fight the US for it.
And still, when he flouts international law by kidnapping another state’s leader, they mumble that Maduro deserved it.
And still, when he bars citizens of 20 war-torn and impoverished countries from entering the US, they mumble nothing at all.
Heaven help us if he casts his greedy eye on Ireland. The Emerald Isle has its Maga attraction as a back door to the despised EU. His ally Steve Bannon told Politico he is creating an Irish “national party” and that there will soon be an Irish Trump. One of a more green hue than orange, presumably. Someone to drag us back to an Ireland-for-the-holy-Catholic-Irish. Is it a coincidence that McGregor has found God?
In another coincidence, Hollywood is remaking the 1970s horror movie, Magic, about a ventriloquist and his foul-mouthed dummy, called Fats. By the time his willing-to-please victims realise the orange wooden lad is out for their blood, it’s too late. Their fate is sealed.
Ireland’s and Europe’s puppets keep dancing to Trump’s strings. What can the rest of us do? It’s not too soon to start making Get out of our Country placards to greet his arrival. Nor is it too soon to cancel those bookings at his hotel. Doonbeg, with its strong community and glorious sea views, can survive without the opportunist who snapped it up for a bargain €15 million when the Irish economy was in the doldrums.
Conquering the world may be his titillation but Trump’s erogenous zone is in his pocket.
Let’s hit him where it hurts.
