Protocol guidelines for the visit of An Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, to Donald Trump, the president of the United States of America, at the White House next Wednesday.
1. Wear a suit. Your host is under the impression that clothes make a man.
2. Pair it with a tie so long a small child playing Tarzan could swing off it.
3. Pat the president’s knee, fondly.
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4. Say: “Tell your beautiful wife I said hello”.
5. Do not ask where his beautiful wife is.
6. Say “thanks” in every sentence. Actually, shout it.
7. Do not mention his hair or he might call you an “assehole” (see Seán O’Rourke’s radio interview in 2014).
8. Bring some Claddagh rings for him to give his buddies Vladimir Putin, Binyamin Netanyahu and Kim Jong-un as a symbol of his enduring love and friendship.
9. Do not lose your temper. Even if he calls you a dictator or accuses you of screwing America, smile and remember he’ll have forgotten by bedtime that he ever said it. “Did I say that?” he’ll smirk like a 79-year-old toddler trying to look adorable.
10. Do not call him a kleptomaniac, a sexual reprobate, a jingoistic plunderer, a mendacious megalomaniac, a sociopathic rabble-rouser, a convicted felon or a Kremlin marionette. He does not do polysyllables. Stick to “bad”, “mad”, “sad”, “ugly” and “dog” when discussing his enemies and “great”, “best by far”, “king” and “big love” when discussing him. “Bigly” is permissible in a crisis.
11. Teach him a couple of Irish phrases he might find helpful. “Póg mo thón,” for JD Vance when the Veep’s obsequiousness proves unsatisfactory. “Póg it some more”. When he is addressing Congress or the media or, really, anytime he opens his mouth to speak he could say: “Tá mé ag insint bréaga,” because, as you know, Taoiseach, that does not mean he’s telling lies.
12. Do not ask him if his “beautiful wife” lives in the White House too.
13. Have a bugler sound a fanfare as you dramatically unfurl a roll of wallpaper decorated with lots of little squiggles and dashes. Tell him it is an invitation written in ancient Ogham from the Little People to come to the land of leprechauns. Tell him nothing like this has ever been seen before and that the King of the Fairies has a crock o’gold waiting for him. Relax, he won’t come. He and his White House think Ireland is in the UK.
14. Assure him he has no need to worry about the Occupied Territories Bill because the only occupied territories the Oireachtas knows of are Denmark’s Greenland, Palestine’s Gaza, and Canada’s, er, Canada.
15. Pat his shoulder like you’re old mates. (See video of Keir Starmer)
16. Tell him America is lucky not to have all those multinational US tech companies needing energy-gobbling data centres, homes for their workforces and extra landing slots at Dublin Airport so that nobody on the northside can get a wink of sleep.
17. Tell him that repatriating Ireland’s big pharma companies would be surplus to RFK junior’s requirements because they make “nasty” vaccines when all the secretary of health and human services wants are gallons of cod liver oil to cure the measles epidemic and barrels of bleach for Covid.
18. If the president says America wants the multinationals back on his home turf because the price of eggs has gone through the roof, make like Marie Antoinette and suggest: “Tell them they eat omelettes”.
19. Pat his little hand – preferably the one nearest you or the Secret Service might get twitchy.
20. When he mentions tariffs, as he inevitably will, pretend you thought he said “terrorists” and reply: “No problem at all, Donald, we’ll send them all over to you.”
21. Do not ask him if his “beautiful wife” is actually a hologram.
22. When he flings the bowl of shamrock aside in disgust, promise he can mine Ireland’s rare-earth treasures – Michael Lowry and the 853 pages of part two of the Moriarty tribunal’s report. Even Trump can always use another disrupter.
23. If offered food, eat it quickly before you’re thrown out of the White House.
24. Do not request five varieties of lettuce, a tomato or any of that “woke” tofu malarkey.
25. Do not ask to see his holiday snaps from his first trip to Russia in 1987 when the Soviet regime invited him to Moscow to build a hotel and he returned to New York wanting to become the president of America.
26. Lather him with flattery.
27. Tell him how much you loved his book, The Art of the Deal, and don’t worry that he will quiz you about your favourite bits because he hasn’t read it either.
28. Do not let Vance into the room.
29. Manspread for Ireland and Europe (see video footage of Macron).
30. If television cameras are allowed into the meeting, make sure Micheál Lehane gets to ask the first question: “Taoiseach, how many suits do you have in your wardrobe? Do you possess a wardrobe? Is it acceptable that some people have to live in wardrobes because they can’t get houses?”
31. Give the president a potted history of St Patrick and how he banished the snakes from Ireland but, under no circumstances, insinuate that is probably the reason the search for his ancestral roots has drawn a blank.
32. Admire the White House. Then whip out snaps of the Leinster House bike shelter and the Department of Finance security hut. As a property developer, he will love the margins.
Alternatively, Taoiseach, you could take a deep breath, walk in there and speak on behalf of a world trembling in fear beyond Pennsylvania Avenue. He may sulk and not talk to you but his days are numbered and, when he is gone, you will be remembered as one courageous leader who refused to toady to the big bully in the Oval Office.
No pressure. But do have your Weetabix on Wednesday morning. And remember what Obama said – is féidir leat.
