Is it ever too early in the morning to listen to YMCA? Apparently not.

By the dawn’s early light at Deerfield, the US ambassador’s residence in the Phoenix Park, the Village People’s signature tune belted out as they tested the PA system inside the large marquee set up to receive guests, and eventually, US president Donald Trump. It was half past six in the morning.

Air Force One was inbound across the Atlantic as the invited guests began to troop in, bleary-eyed and flocking towards the embassy’s coffee and pastry table. The lawn at Deerfield was soon crowded with the great and good – plenty of past and present TDs and Senators (Fine Gael had a particularly good attendance), as well as high flyers from the corporate world, with Amazon, Meta, Google, Stripe and many more represented.

The VVIPs were nowhere to be seen: Denis O’Brien, Dermot Desmond and Michael O’Leary were said to have been among those to enjoy a round table meeting with Trump on arrival rather than join the mingling classes.

Invited guests included some from the conservative lobby, including Gript.ie journalist Niamh Uí Bhriain and conservative activist Laoise de Brún, alongside Ivor Cummins of the Spoil the Vote campaign and one-time spending guru turned online commentator Eddie Hobbs.

There were a couple of beauty queens on hand: former Miss Ireland Lauren McDonagh and Miss Universe Ireland Aideen Howard had the pleasure of a 7.41am chat with Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell. Throw in a few Secretarys General, embassy staff, security types, lobbyists, uniformed marines and journalists and you’re at a decent sized crowd. Oh, and Michael Flatley, who gave a public interview about his friendship with Trump and hardscrabble Chicago upbringing, before playing the flute for a bit.

As Trump touched down and travelled towards the park, the crowd was treated to rousing renditions of both the Star Spangled Banner and Amhrán na bhFiann, before the official Trump Spotify playlist kicked back into gear: Eye of the Tiger, Live and Let Die, Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, Thriller, November Rain and The Undertaker’s (WWE) theme song. It was a mini-Trump rally: when it comes to production values like this, Irish politics is only in its infancy.

By the time the US president was predicting a united Ireland, there was still no sign of the cabinet. Most had accepted invitations and began to materialise shortly before Potus, but Mary Butler, Dara Calleary, Noel Grealish, Patrick O’Donovan (who was due at Shannon), Norma Foley, Sean Canney and James Browne sent their regrets. Apparently Jim O’Callaghan’s invitation went to the wrong address, so there was a question over his attendance.

Trump entered to the strains of God Bless the USA, and to a standing ovation. He stayed, staring out into the audience, bobbing to the music, for at least a minute. The speech – all 34 minutes of it – was straight out of the big beautiful playbook. By turns funny and charming, rambling and boring, cruel and menacing, he played the hits: the US economy, his ineffective political enemies, the dominance of American military materiel, crime figures, immigration, the anti-DEI agenda.

The diversions were typically Trumpian: he seemed to sense, and revel in, the controversy he had caused with his united Ireland comments up the road in Farmleigh, calling reunification a “very cool thing”, telling the crowd he had given a “nice answer… we’ll read about it tomorrow”.

His preoccupations were on show – accusing Ireland of “taking all our medical companies… you fleeced us”. It was a pantomime act of a huckster’s grudging respect for Irish successes, but grounded in one of the most tenacious parts of his worldview – that if someone is winning, it’s at someone else’s expense, and it won’t be his.

He lavished praise on Irish hospitality and doggedness (“vicious bastards”); he praised his ambassador and then mocked him for picking a tent that shook in the wind. He said he didn’t cheat at golf – but he suggested that maybe he would if he could. He tried to get the (apparently Irish American) head of his Secret Service detail to identify himself in the crowd – which seems a little self-defeating. He bragged about Venezuela, claimed to be hammering Iran, and that he won the 2020 election. He slagged off the press. He meandered and lost focus. By about halfway through, he had lost the room – many of whom had been up before 5am, and on their feet since arriving.

There were lengthy digressions and a moment where he seemed to think he was in the UK. The campness and pageantry, which mask the ragged and brutish edges of the Trump presidency, began to go out of focus. Like his united Ireland comments, he said things that were outrageous but empty and unserious.

He had fun, he got bored, and he left for Doonbeg. He mimicked a golf shot, and YMCA played him out.