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A few years back, a U.S. president’s visit to the Emerald Isle was accompanied with quips about “O'bama.” This time around it was mutterings of “Oh, Trump!”
Since 1998’s Good Friday Agreement brought about the end of the rumbling sectarian violence of the Troubles, visiting U.S. heads of state have largely kept schtum on the issue of Irish unification. And for good reason: Whether Northern Ireland is destined to remain in the U.K. or become part of a wider Irish Republic is a thorny issue.
So Donald Trump’s enthusiastic support for reunification – “a cool thing,” would “love to see” – came as a bit of a shock, and immediately saw pushback from some in the North, as well as Trump’s usual allies in the U.K.
But he is far from the first U.S. president to opine over Ireland. As Bryan McGovern, an expert on Irish and Irish-American history at Kennesaw State University, explains, U.S. presidents going back to Andrew Jackson have long grappled with Irish nationalism – some have given support in private at least, and occasionally in public, too.
What difference Trump’s intervention will make now is not certain, however. Sizable minorities in Ireland and Northern Ireland oppose reunification, and, McGovern writes, “given the vocal opposition of the British government, unification is not likely to happen soon, no matter what the U.S. president wants.”
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