SPEND ENOUGH TIME in the United States, and you’re pretty much guaranteed to have the same experience that President Catherine Connolly had last week. 

In her first public remarks since meeting her American counterpart Donald Trump, Connolly confirmed that the President had asked her what she thought about Irish reunification. It gave me a flashback to signing my first ever lease in New York City some 10 years ago, in the company of a young, brash, very Italian-American real estate broker who made pleasant and curious conversation as I read through the rental contract — itself probably at least a few pages longer than the Good Friday Agreement. 

“So you guys are like two countries, huh? North Ireland, South Ireland… What’s the deal with that?” It was almost comforting to watch the very same scene play out between Donald Trump and Micheál Martin, at the highest levels of decision-making power, in front of dozens of television cameras. A universal Irish experience. 

Donald Trump doesn’t know it, of course, but in many ways brokering a peaceful reunification of Ireland is a problem tailor-made for his own self-image. It’s a chance to go one better than his old enemy Bill Clinton, for starters. He’s also proven himself a totally busted flush when it comes to bringing about peace in Ukraine or the Middle East, so why not take on a conundrum where a lot of the hardest work has already been accomplished? Alas, Donald Trump’s only real gift is a seemingly innate knowledge of what will get a reaction. That, and no other reason, is why he found himself referring to the reunification as “one of the naturals of all time”. 

And perhaps it’s only natural that Trump’s speculating as to the future of our island got people excited. Some people still........

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