Green party falls flat at the White House
Irish scratch heads as hosts make mess of St Patrick’s Day
WASHINGTON— The day began with a mildly offensive Irish cliché in front of a roomful of Irish people — and it all went downhill from there.
“Top of the morning,” said VicePresident Mike Pence, as he hosted Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny at his residence for breakfast Thursday.
Really? The reaction by Irish on social media was palpable.
“Literally just shouted ‘NOBODY SAYS THAT’ at the TV,” a journalist in Ireland tweeted.
Ireland’s leader was in Washington for a series of events in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, including a luncheon at the U.S. Capitol, a one-onone meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and a long-standing annual ceremony in which the president is presented with a bowl of shamrocks.
Long before the festivities began, the visit was controversial in Ireland. Almost 40,000 people signed a petition titled “Shamrock for Trump: Not in my name” demanding that Kenny cancel the trip.
As the day went on, the awkward — and at times embarrassing — Irish cultural references from Washington politicians were nearly as bountiful as their green neck ties.
At the luncheon, Trump shared what he claimed was an Irish proverb but in fact seems to have been written by Nigerian poet Albashir Adam Alhassan. Irish tweeters immediately displayed skepticism:
“With all due respect to the president’s reputation for scrupulously checking his sources, I don’t think this is an Irish proverb,” said one.
The irony of the mishaps was that Trump has surrounded himself with Irish Americans, from presidential counsellor Kellyanne Conway to press secretary Sean Spicer. Two of the leading Republicans involved in Thursday’s cultural snafus — Pence and Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan — identify as Irish American.
One of Ryan’s statements about the president being the “closest thing you can get to royalty in Ireland,” due to owning so many golf courses, left many Irish people shaking their heads, both at the reference to royalty in a republic and to the Scottish game of golf.
But perhaps the most “appalling” moment of the day for some came as Ryan offered a toast, in honour of Ireland’s visit.
The speaker may have used the correct word for the toast, “slainte,” but all Irish Guinness enthusiasts could focus on was that “despicable pint.” Anyone who has lived in or travelled to Ireland knows the law of the land: a dark, Irish beer should always be topped with a creamy, white, thick foam.
Irish news website the Journal summed it up this way: “Some questionable Guinness pouring going on in Washington by the looks of Paul D. Ryan’s pint.”