Mr Trump is to visit Ireland on Saturday and Sunday where he will meet political leaders and also attend the Irish Open golf tournament.
Irish‑Americans living in Ireland say Donald Trump’s upcoming visit carries a sense of embarrassment rather than excitement, with most who spoke to the Irish Independent expressing discomfort about his arrival this weekend.
Mr Trump is to visit Ireland on Saturday and Sunday where he will meet political leaders and also attend the Irish Open golf tournament.
He is due to be greeted at Dublin Airport by Tánaiste Simon Harris before travelling to Áras an Uachtaráin for talks with President Catherine Connolly, a long‑standing critic of the US president, followed by a meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin at Farmleigh.
He will then head to Co Clare, where his Doonbeg resort is hosting the Irish Open.
Toni Rae (43), a retail worker from Florida living in Donegal for the past 10 years, said the Government’s decision to host him “seems a little bootlicky to me,” adding that she believes Mr Trump is using the Taoiseach for his own end.
“He would grab onto whoever he thinks is going to take him somewhere.”
Ms Rae said she is “alarmed” by how Trumpian politics has slowly seeped into Irish discourse.
“It feels like a lot more Irish people approve of his tactics and his anti-immigration stuff.”
Nicholas Howley (42), from New England, who has been living with his American husband in Limerick for the past two years, described Mr Trump’s presidency as “a joke that went too far”, adding that his own decision to leave America was partly driven by the White House incumbent’s leadership.
“We had a pride flag hanging off of our front porch. The number of times I stood in my own front yard, and someone in a pick-up truck would drive by and yell the word ‘f****t’, increased substantially over his term.”
He hopes President Catherine Connolly will project “an edge” in her informal meeting with the US president at the Áras.
“I hope she holds him to account in some degree. In the past, she’s called him volatile, she’s called him a bully, so it’s very clear what her perspective is on him.”
Lauren Macaulay (39) from Dallas has been working for more than five years in a construction company in Galway.
She is sceptical about public enthusiasm for this visit.
“I don’t think it’s going to bring the same feeling or energy like when Biden came. A lot more people were probably excited and receptive [for Biden].”
For her, no amount of plámás from Irish representatives will end the “nasty” comments she receives from Irish people as a result of Mr Trump’s presidency.
“Just to lump us all into one category, it’s like ‘Americans, they’re stupid, they’re this, they’re that’. Sometimes it is kind of hurtful,” she said.
Content creator Carter Maynard (34) says Mr Trump’s presidency is a “nightmare”.
The West Virginian, living in Cork with his wife and son, said the US president is “in for a shock” when he arrives the Áras.
“He doesn’t even know that [Ms Connolly] is a woman, so I think that she’ll have to be prepared for that. She should be like ‘Hey, I’m actually the president and yes, I’m a woman’, so I think it’ll be for surprised by that,” Mr Maynard said.
For him, this weekend’s visit represents nothing significant for Mr Trump or Ireland.
“I hate to say it but Donald Trump doesn’t care about Ireland. This is a golf trip for him with a side of politics. This is no better than a colonial landlord going to their estate for some sport they don’t care about.”
Chicago native Lucy Trankina (34) is currently a social worker living in Dublin. She has been here for five years and says Mr Trump’s first election victory in 2016 served as a “wake-up call” to Americans.
Speaking ahead of the “disgraceful” visit, she says Mr Trump’s presidency has caused her to detach from the news.
“I wasn’t even aware of it until this, because I just try not to pay attention, for better or worse,” she said.
“It just makes my skin crawl that he’s going to be here. It seems more like showboating and more like any attention for him because he’s a narcissist and it feeds his ego.”
She urges the Taoiseach to approach his meeting with Mr Trump “very cautiously”.
However, Jana Lunden, founder of Irish conservative women’s group Natural Women’s Council, believes the visit is an opportunity to strengthen the “extraordinary historic relationship” between Ireland and the US.
“Whatever someone’s personal feelings about Donald Trump, he is the President of the United States,” the Meath-based woman said.
“Personal dislike shouldn’t get in the way of the respect Ireland and America have traditionally had for one another.”
Ms Lunden has been living here for 23 years and says she worries that Irish society is moving away from “evidence-based policy” and towards “ideology”.
“I think we should be having that same open debate about so many issues: gender and critical race theory in schools, protection of women’s single sex sports and spaces, migration, neutrality, funding foreign wars and freedom of speech.”
She added that she hopes Mr Trump’s arrival will encourage the Irish political class to “put the people back at the centre of decision”.