Middle Ireland feels grievously insulted by the US president. On St Patrick’s Day, when the globe traditionally turns green, Donald Trump’s official guest at the White House was not the taoiseach bearing a bowl of shamrock, but an unelected stooge recently found by a civil court jury liable for the rape of a woman in a Dublin hotel. Fear and loathing of the mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor, who is facing civil trial in the US for alleged sexual assault of another woman in Florida, is one of middle Ireland’s most unifying forces.
“We couldn’t think of a better guest to have with us on St Patrick’s Day,” gushed Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt on 17 March, rubbing salt in the wound. McGregor was given access to the Pentagon, met the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, and the national security adviser, Mike Waltz. In the Oval Office, McGregor and his family posed for photographs with the US president, a man also found liable for sexual assault. Prominent in the photographs was Elon Musk, the world’s richest individual and Trump’s unelected jobs slasher. McGregor presented Musk with a box of his own brand cigars. Four days later, the Dubliner, self-styled “the notorious”, announced he intends to contest the Irish presidential election later this year.
