From JFK to Biden, Trump joins well-trodden path to the Emerald Isle

From JFK to Biden, Trump follows a long-established route to the Emerald Isle

When Donald Trump arrives in Dublin on Saturday, he will be taking a familiar international route.

In recent decades, Ireland has become a regular stop for US presidential visits.

Among small countries, it is notable for receiving so many.

The relationship between the two countries was shaped by emigration, strengthened by economic links, and solidified by the Northern Ireland peace process, in which Washington played a major part.

Historians generally estimate that about five million people left Ireland for the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Dr Peter McLoughlin, who teaches history and politics at Queen's University Belfast, said this created an "enormous ethnic link".

In 2024, census figures showed that 32.4 million Americans said they had Irish ancestry — almost one in ten of the population.

That has meant several presidents have seen political value in being seen to explore their roots.

John F Kennedy was the first president to visit Ireland while in office.

In June 1963, he went to his ancestral home in County Wexford, from where his great-grandfather had departed during the Irish potato famine in 1848.

In his speech to the Irish Parliament, he said: "This has never been a rich or powerful country, and yet, since earliest times, its influence on the world has been rich and powerful."

Since then, Ireland has become wealthy by many global measures, with some of the biggest US companies helping drive its economic growth.

Technology and pharmaceutical firms such as Apple, Pfizer and Meta have major European bases in Ireland.

The sharp rise in US investment in Ireland in the 1990s came alongside the development of the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Bill Clinton's three visits to the island included both sides of the border, and he was heavily involved in the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, which largely brought an end to the conflict in Northern Ireland after three decades.

McLoughlin, who has studied America's role, said: "It's one of the examples where you can see US power being used in a successful way to get a peaceful settlement.

"After Clinton, George W Bush was maybe not such a hands-on president as regards Northern Ireland, but his White House was important in making sure the Good Friday Agreement was implemented."

Each year on Ireland's national day, St Patrick's Day, politicians, civic leaders and business figures from Belfast and Dublin are welcomed in Washington.

The taoiseach (Irish prime minister) traditionally gives the president a bowl of shamrock, the plant that symbolises Ireland.

Dan Mulhall, Ireland's Ambassador to Washington from 2017-22, said the annual access to the White House was "pretty unique".

"I remember some of my European colleagues were kind of puzzled as to how Ireland had pulled this off, given that some of them also have large diaspora communities in the US, but they don't seem to have the same impact or lasting connection with their ancestral homeland as the Irish Americans undoubtedly have."

Barack Obama honoured his heritage in 2011, when he visited Moneygall in County Offaly, the home village of his great-great-great grandfather.

In a speech in Dublin, he joked: "I've come home to find the apostrophe that we lost somewhere along the way."

, which was the last US presidential visit.

He went to his ancestral counties of Mayo and Louth and marked the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

Donald Trump's visit will differ in both substance and tone.

He has no known Irish ancestry.

His attention will be on golf rather than genealogy, as he watches the Irish Open at his resort in Doonbeg in County Clare.

In Dublin, he will meet Taoiseach Micheàl Martin and Irish President Catherine Connolly.

Connolly has a largely ceremonial role as head of state, but she has previously been a strong critic of US foreign policy, especially in the Middle East.

Trump referred to Connolly as "he" after she criticised the US attack on Iran as "a brutal assault on international law".

"He's lucky I exist," Trump said.

The US Embassy in Dublin criticised a law passed by the Irish Parliament this year banning the import of goods from Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

The Embassy said the legislation "risked real unintended consequences, particularly for nearly 1000 US companies and the hundreds of thousands of Irish jobs tied to them".

US actions overseas will be the subject of protests in Dublin and County Clare this weekend.

On Thursday, a large sand artwork appeared on a beach in Dublin Bay.

The campaign group Uplift carved the words 'No kings - Gaza Iran Ice' into the sand.

Washington's trade policy has also been a major issue in Ireland, as Trump has voiced unhappiness about the scale of US pharmaceutical manufacturing in the country.

However, tariffs have mostly not been imposed on the sector.

Mullhall, the former Ireland Ambassador to Washington, said the economic relationship was "as strong as it's ever been".

He believes the Irish government will approach Trump's visit with "prudent realism".

"It's not possible to expect that a small country, any country in fact, can deflect Donald Trump from any of his purposes or policies.

"Most countries have adopted the strategy of simply trying to ride out the Trump term and hope for more predictable days ahead.

"So I think the government will play it safe and will be above all else, be wanting to avoid any kind of tension or difficulty between themselves and Donald Trump."

McLoughlin of Queen's University sees similarities between Trump's visit and Ronald Reagan's in 1984, when there was opposition over US foreign policy in Latin America.

The Catholic church was very influential in Ireland at the time, and McLoughlin noted that senior clergy did not meet Reagan.

"This was a time when many people would have members of the family who were in Latin America as a nun or a priest, and were bringing back first-hand reports of how there were controversial associations with US policy, with right-wing paramilitaries who were engaged in the Cold War struggle."

But he said that despite criticism of the visit, the Irish government wanted to "court" Reagan for "economic reasons, and political reasons involving Northern Ireland".

He added that images of Reagan tracing his ancestry in County Tipperary helped make the visit "successful" from the point of view of Dublin and Washington.

Ireland is more accustomed than most countries to hosting the holder of the world's most powerful office, and the diplomatic sensitivities surrounding Trump's visit are another chapter in a story that goes back many decades.