I WAS supposed to join my brother and his wife to take part in the St Patrick’s Day parade in my home town of Letterkenny, but as I looked out my window at the rain bucketing down, I decided to give it a miss.

Sure, says I to myself, who wants to walk a couple of miles drenched to the skin, when the attractive alternative is sitting beside a nice fire in a wee country pub in rural Inishowen?

It was no contest.

Anyway, as we were driving on the outskirts of Buncrana later in the day, heading towards the aforementioned hostelry, I noted a whole host of people dressed in a tremendous array of green costumes, making a run for their cars as they were getting absolutely soaked in the torrential rain. It really was heavy-duty weather.

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It was a chaotic scene, and it reminded me of another St Patrick’s Day many years ago.

Back in 1989 we took the family to Australia, and on March 17 I recall driving over Sydney Harbour Bridge.

It turned out to be one of the most memorable days of my life, as we got totally lost, but that’s a story for a different day.

I recall the sun was splitting the rocks, and driving over the historic bridge with it vast array of cars, trains, buses, bicycles and pedestrians was one hell of an experience.

There isn’t, I am led to believe, another structure like it in the world.

But why I also recall it so well is that just as we came on to it, there were about 20-30 people dressed in Irish/GAA jerseys, some with guitars, some with beers, and they were running about in great spirits.

Amidst all that traffic mayhem, the massive hustle and bustle, here were these Irish youngsters singing their hearts out. It was a wee bit surreal.

My oldest was 12 at the time, and as things were far from great economically then, I had a kind of passing thought whether some day he might be standing there with another group of young Irish people, singing songs about their home place, a place far away.

And this roundabout story brings me on to Micheál Martin’s trip to Washington for the traditional St Patrick’s Day shindig.

It used to be a non-controversial bit of craic, even a bit of paddywhackery… but not any more.

It’s now very much a hot-button topic.

There were those who were trenchant in their criticism of the taoiseach’s visit.

They cited what they deemed were Trump’s illegal foreign actions including attacks on Iran, the kidnapping of the Venezuelan leader, his support for Israel’s war on Gaza, his rhetoric on immigration which bordered pretty close to racism, his claims on ownership of Greenland and Canada, and his repeated verbal attacks on various European leaders, not least the Spanish and British prime ministers.

By going with a bowl of shamrocks on Ireland’s national day it was, this cohort suggested, tantamount to, at best, the taoiseach tacitly going along with all that. At worst it was outright support.

And then there was the flip side.

There were those who argued that the taoiseach had to maintain good relations with the United States for a whole host of reasons, primarily economic and diplomatic.

They pointed out that US multinationals based in the Republic account for around 60% of Ireland’s goods exports, and that these firms contribute more than 25% of the corporate tax revenue, which comes in at roughly €20bn a year.

Emigration is no more, and there are thousands in well paid employment.

So, the reality for the taoiseach, in my view, was that he was damned it he did, damned if he didn’t.

This shamrock ceremony has been going on for more than 70 years. It’s been going on long before Trump and will, hopefully, be going on long after him.

It’s a gig too that puts Ireland centre-stage in America the way no other country has access to.

As the Irish Times correspondent Keith Duggan observed on Wednesday, “Irish exceptionalism is alive and well” in the United States.

It has brought great wealth to the Republic and could also in years to come bring a lot of economic uplift here too.

But is that it? It’s all down to economics? Nothing else?

I don’t claim to have any philosophy qualifications but I suppose the really profound questions are at what point do morals come into economics? Or do they?

Do you sell your principles for filthy lucre?

Should you mute criticism of Trump’s abuses abroad to protect domestic prosperity?

And where does the boundary of legitimate self-interest cross over into turning a blind eye to amorality and cruelty to protect what has become selfish self-interest?

Seeing I haven’t a clue how to resolve this dilemma, anybody know where we can find a modern day Aristotle or St Thomas Aquinas?

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