Trump’s Irish Open should be out of bounds for politicians |
A REVILED US lawyer who died nearly four decades go might not be expected to have a central influence on one of the main Irish sporting events of the year, but there is a fair chance that the legacy of Roy Cohn is about to become a serious issue in both Belfast and Dublin.
The connection is obviously Donald J Trump, who among his many other commitments is the owner of the prominent golf course and leisure complex at Doonbeg in Co Clare where the Irish Open is to be held in September, and who is notorious for his dedication to Cohn’s malicious tactics.
Their astonishingly close relationship was comprehensively set out in the Oscar-nominated 2024 film The Apprentice which received widespread critical acclaim, even though Trump described it as a “defamatory, politically disgusting, hatchet job” and made concerted legal attempts to prevent its release.
Cohn, an entirely odious individual, preached three mendacious rules throughout his long and appalling career, which were always attack, never admit wrongdoing, and always claim victory, even if defeated.
It is a mantra which has been closely followed by Trump, who openly acknowledged the role of his mentor when he referred in his 1987 book The Art Of The Deal to “...all the hundreds of ‘respectable’ guys who made careers out of boasting about their uncompromising........