Protesting hurts. The ache begins in the lower back after a couple of hours of standing with a placard aloft, but levity proves an excellent panacea. “Be a good Yank and go home,” the Connemara man’s banner inveigled Donald Trump in Doonbeg last weekend.

“Everyone has the right to protest,” said a young garda, unlikely to catch anything more untoward than pneumonia on a 12-hour shift. The geniality of his colleague from Castlebar was a legend by lunchtime. How fortunate is Ireland to have an unarmed police force, unlike Trump’s United States.

Two garda vans marked Public Order Unit pulled up, kept watch for a while and quickly departed when there was nothing to see. Just a bunch of non-aligned individuals from Moycullen to Mumbai and Michigan worried about Trump world and hoping Shane Lowry would win the trophy on the golf course.

The view from the dissenters’ side of the barrier jarred with some of the public narrative. Media reports of opposition to the protests were exaggerated. Numerous golf-goers being bussed to the Irish Open at the US president’s club waved and gave thumbs up as they passed by in a fleet of dusty, red double-deckers. Motorists in Clare-registered cars wound down their windows and called out “good on ye”. Some came around twice to ensure their support was registered.

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