Trump Told Ireland's Prime Minister He Would 'Love to See It Unified.' Then He Went to Watch Golf at His Own Course.
On a weekend trip built around the Irish Open at his Doonbeg club, the president said Irish unification 'may as well happen now,' drawing a rebuke from Northern Ireland's largest unionist party and a cordon around Dublin's Phoenix Park.
President Donald Trump opened a weekend visit to Ireland on Saturday by wading into the most sensitive question in Irish politics, telling Prime Minister Micheál Martin in Dublin that he would "love to see" the island unified and that it "may as well happen now."
"I don't want to cause any problems but I'd love to see it unified. I think it would be a fantastic thing," Trump said during his meeting with Martin, according to CBS News and the Associated Press. He added that "the U.K. will have something to say about it, obviously." Northern Ireland, a six-county region with a Protestant majority, stayed in the United Kingdom when the rest of the island became self-governing a century ago. The split fueled three decades of violence between unionists who wanted to remain British and nationalists who wanted to join the Republic, until the 1998 Good Friday accord, brokered with heavy American involvement, largely ended the killing while leaving the region's final status open.
The reaction from Belfast was immediate. "As unionists we are not interested in the destruction of our country by joining with the Irish Republic," Gavin Robinson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, wrote on X. U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said last month that a unity referendum was "off the table," a position that had already drawn a sharp response from Sinn Féin, the largest pro-unity party.
The remarks came on a trip that is, by the White House's own scheduling, more about golf than diplomacy. Trump flew overnight from Washington after Friday's 25th-anniversary commemoration of the September 11 attacks and landed in Dublin for a compressed round of meetings: a red-carpet welcome and closed-door talks with President Catherine Connolly at Áras an Uachtaráin, her official residence in Phoenix Park; a session with Martin at the government's Farmleigh state guesthouse; and remarks to U.S. and Irish business leaders at Deerfield, the U.S. ambassador's residence. From there he was to fly across the country to the Trump International Golf Links and Hotel in Doonbeg, County Clare, to watch the Irish Open and help present the trophy on Sunday.
Connolly is an unusual host for Trump. A left-wing politician and supporter of the Palestinian cause, she was among the protesters when he visited Ireland in 2019 and has previously called him a "bully." On Saturday she met him at the end of a red carpet, shook hands and chatted before the two went inside. Trump then emerged alone to salute as an Irish Defence Forces band played the U.S. national anthem and to inspect an Irish Army honor guard, before Connolly rejoined him to introduce the two delegations. Martin, who invited Trump during a St. Patrick's Day visit to the White House this year, said beforehand that he wanted to discuss issues of "mutual interest" and to reaffirm "the strong economic, cultural and people-to-people ties between Ireland and the United States." Trade and foreign policy, where the two governments have real differences, were on the agenda, the White House said.
Dublin itself was not uniformly welcoming. Police cordoned off the 1,750-acre Phoenix Park, snarling traffic. "He's causing mayhem in this city because he wants to go down to Doonbeg and play golf," said taxi driver Christopher Fox. "The world's in turmoil and this fella's down playing golf." University student Mina Petrovski called Trump's "attitudes towards women, towards immigrants, towards minority communities in general" abhorrent and said it was "shameful that the Irish government is welcoming him with open arms." A coalition of left-leaning opposition parties, anti-military groups, pro-Palestinian organizations and environmentalists planned demonstrations in the capital on Saturday.
Trump's son Eric pushed back in an interview with Irish broadcaster RTÉ on Friday from Doonbeg, where the resort is the area's largest employer. "Go down to Morrissey's tavern in Doonbeg and hear from a real Irish person as to whether or not they like President Trump and the Trump family," he said. The Irish Open is the second European Tour event staged at a Trump property this year, after the Nexo Championship at his Aberdeen course in August, and his clubs in Doral, Florida, and Bedminster, New Jersey, have each hosted professional tournaments in 2026. Martin, for his part, said he hoped to see an Irish winner lift the trophy on Sunday; Shane Lowry led the field at the halfway point.
Originally reported by CBS News.