Why Michelle O’Neill is wrong to snub Trump today

I once almost made it to the White House for St Patrick’s Day.

I was a Senator and invited during Barack Obama’s term.

Except someone forgot to confirm with us that we were going, and as we drowned our shamrock in Dublin, an email came through asking me to make my way to the Pennsylvania Avenue gate of the American President’s house.

I am still green when thinking about it.

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Would I go now? I wouldn’t: not just because Trump is in situ, but because I have seen how people from here operate in such environments.

Watch the footage uploaded to social media later this evening, and you will see egos tripping over each other, cameras shoved in faces, and all manner of falseness as politicians jostle for the perfect camera angle, while hangers-on’s eyes rove the room, scoping out the best people to be seen with.

One time, at an event in Dublin, a former taoiseach asked his aide: “Who is that person who keeps shuffling over beside me and smiling?”

When the name of the northerner was duly given, the politician replied “Well, what the f*** do they want?”

The aide laughed and said: “A photograph with you for their social media account.”

And that is what happens. Little meaningful engagement, and lots of self-promotion on the selfie circuit.

I am not much of a mingler. Give me a cup of decaf tea and a good book over a crowd of starry-eyed, spangled, mannerless politicos any day.

So, I feel a degree of sympathy for Emma Little-Pengelly, who is flying the flag for the north today with Trump, while her counterpart, Michelle O’Neill, once again sidesteps the hard yards.

The Shinners have stated that her non-attendance is due to the US’s alliance with Israel. How noble.

During Trump’s first term, people associated with the US-based Friends of Sinn Féin made multiple donations to US Republican candidates and committees.

The DUP’s Jonathan Buckley recently told the Assembly that Sinn Féin’s “so-called position of principle is easily traded on the back of a $100 note”.

It’s not a phenomenon particular to the Shinners, but it does weaken their supposed ideological argument.

Perhaps it is because the SDLP leader, Claire Hanna, and the Alliance leader, Naomi Long, declared they were not attending that prompted O’Neill to take her stance.

They can afford not to – neither is leading the Executive. But O’Neill is, and, to Joe and Mary Bloggs, it looks like another example of her aversion to responsible governance.

We saw it last month when she skipped British Government briefing meetings while hundreds of Irish people were stranded in the Middle East.

Northerners deserve the very best political service – God knows, we’ve suffered enough to get here. Is it too much to ask?

Fear not, republicans, Sinn Féin will still be in Washington, ready to advance its interests. It is a prime opportunity to feather the party’s nest.

And that, my friends, is indicative of the problem that we have very often here: our politicians are too interested in improving their back yards, and not enough in our collective spaces.

So, it was welcome to hear Little-Pengelly state that she is in Washington to “maximise our full potential”.

It is a pity that the shamrock-giving by Micheál Martin to Trump isn’t a three-way affair.

That would not only recognise the north in the ceremonial aspect, but take some of the heat off the taoiseach, who has been caught between a rock and a hard place.

Today, his is the unenviable task: how to hand a tyrant a bowl of shamrock without his spirit wilting, or his in-built fact-checker registering on his face when the American president opens his mouth.

Why is he doing it? Because he is a grown-up politician elected to office, who has to take the rough with the smooth for Ireland’s benefit.

Snub it, and Ireland would face economic ruin at the hands of an unpredictable bully who dangles tariffs, noose-like, over a small country’s economy.

So, he’ll go, and grin, and we will breathe a sigh of relief when he is on a plane home, that he hasn’t added to our cost of living woes by doing something to upset the apple cart.

O’Neill could take a lesson or two.

But enough of politics. Today, people of all persuasions will go out to mark St Patrick.

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Some will reflect with a church service. Others will eat stew and perhaps have a pint.

In Belfast, Dublin, Derry and Armagh, and in lots of towns in between, children will smile, dance and watch colourful parades.

Fingers will fly on fiddles, bodhráns will beat, and the infectious rhythm will make toes tap.

There won’t be a canapé or a stuffy speech in sight. Bliss.

Happy St Patrick’s Day.

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