TRUMP IS COMING TO CLARE IN WEEKS
Secret Service agents here within days to arrange security for the US president
AMERICAN Secret Service agents will arrive in Co. Clare this week to arrange security for a visit by Donald Trump a month later, the Irish Mail on Sunday can exclusively reveal.
President Trump is expected to arrive at Shannon Airport on June 6 or 7 and stay at his hotel in Doonbeg, according to tentative arrangements revealed to the MoS last night. He will be in France for the 75th anniversary of D-Day on June 6 and is expected here on a brief stopover, to stay at his hotel and play golf there.
Government ministers said they are holding back on making an official announcement as they were embarrassed when the president cancelled arrangements for a trip to Ireland last year.
‘With this most erratic of presidents we won’t be announcing it until every detail is nailed down,’ said a minister, ‘but tentative talks have opened.’
Nevertheless, the MoS has learned that
the Secret Service has notified the gardaí of their intention to inspect routes, accommodation and security in Co. Clare this Thursday and Friday.
A senior Garda source confirmed that the Department of Foreign Affairs has contacted the force to arrange a meeting with Secret Service agents at Shannon this week. A number of VIP transport companies have already been engaged by the US embassy to bring the agents around Clare and Limerick. They will be escorted by armed gardaí.
The US Secret Service is the only foreign agency permitted to carry firearms in the State.
‘They will reconnoitre routes from the airport to Doonbeg and around the area,’ said a Garda source involved in the arrangements. ‘They will also check the routes to the nearest hospital, which is in Limerick.
‘My previous experience with the Secret Service is that they will forensically examine what they want to be their primary routes, then back-up routes.
‘Of course, roads that will accommodate The Beast will have to be located. Clare has lots of tight boreens, particularly around Doonbeg.’
The Beast is the nickname for the armour-plated, bomb-proof Cadillac that the president uses to get around. The Secret Service will also be planning for a small army of personnel that comes with the president, and for the transportation of special vehicles like The Beast.
‘They will see if The Beast fits the boreens’
While Foreign Affairs officials have spoken to gardaí about meeting the Secret Service, the MoS has learned that in-depth planning has not begun. But Government, Garda and civilian sources say that, going by the initial Secret Service inspections, it appears president Trump will only visit Doonbeg in west Clare. He has no plans for a Dublin trip.
‘At the moment he is only going to fly to Shannon in Air Force One and then stay for one night in Doonbeg,’ said a Government source.
‘We understand that the Taoiseach will travel to Co. Clare to meet the president. There is precedent for that.’
In 2004, then-Republican president George W Bush stayed at Dromoland Castle near Shannon Airport. He was attending a G20 Summit and he did not visit Dublin.
Contractors hired by the US embassy have only been engaged to transport Secret Service agents to Doonbeg.
‘They have only asked to be taken around Shannon Airport environs and Doonbeg Golf Club. It is on for May 2 and 3,’ said a source.
President Trump was due to visit Ireland last November but cancelled the trip without giving a firm explanation, less than two months beforehand.
He expressed regret about that at a press conference in the Oval Office with the Taoiseach in March and indicated he would be visiting this year.
‘I will be coming at some point this year. I missed it last year, and I would have loved to have been there.
‘It’s a special place and I have a very warm spot for Doonbeg. I will tell you that. It is just a great place,’ he said.
President Trump has only two scheduled visits to Europe this year. One in June and one in December. With winter gales and cold weather, Doonbeg is not conducive to the pleasant games of golf he favours.
The Taoiseach said, in Chicago in March, that the president could visit Ireland as early as June, as part of a trip to Europe for D-Day commemorations.
President Trump also spoke warmly about the Doonbeg links to the MoS, in the Oval Office this year. He likes to play one of the golf courses he owns when he is in Europe. Last year, on his visit to the UK, he played his golf course at Turnberry in Scotland.
Buckingham Palace has said he will make a state visit there on June 3 to 5, and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said that he will boycott a banquet Queen Elizabeth will host.
President Trump will be only the third US president to have been accorded the honour of a state visit by Queen Elizabeth during her 67-year reign. But many Britons deeply dislike him and reject his policies on issues such as immigration.
Almost 1.9million UK citizens signed a petition in 2017 saying he should not be given a state visit. The visit will include a carriage trip through London and a banquet at Buckingham Palace. However, protests involving tens of thousands of demonstrators overshadowed his non-state trip to Britain last July. Few details of the UK visit were given, but it will include a meeting with prime minister Theresa May and a ceremony in Portsmouth to mark the anniversary of the DDay landings.
President Trump will be with his wife Melania.
The Irish Government said it has not had any indication the president is considering a visit to Ireland in June. However, it said there is a long-standing invitation for him to come, and he has indicated that he hopes to do so at some stage this year.
The gardaí said they will not comment on security arrangements for president Trump.
A spokesman said: ‘For operational reasons we cannot discuss details of these arrangements ahead of any event.’
Melania will be on trip to Europe with him