Deirdre Reynolds: Did the Donald really fáilte for Micheál’s forelock tug?

There was green, white AND gold (if you count the US president’s increasingly copperised complexion) when the Taoiseach sat down with Donald Trump in the Oval Office during the week to discuss everything from golf to Gaza.

Now, after his shouting match with Volodymyr Zelensky a fortnight ago, there was never any fear that the congenial Corkonian was going to sham-rock the boat by tackling the world’s most famous felon on tariffs, counter-tariffs (or even counter-counter-tarriffs), ethnic cleansing or Russia’s war on Ukraine.

But, and believe me, I don’t say this lightly, I couldn’t help but wish that our leader had displayed just a smidgin more of the ‘fighting Irish’ spirit shown by Enoch Burke’s family as they were embarrassingly dragged out of the annual Ireland Funds dinner in Washington that night as he doffed his Paddy cap to the 47th president of the United States.

Say what you will about Ammi, Isaac and their parents Martina and Sean, but they’re not afraid to make a holy show of themselves on the world stage to get their point across.

Like being cornered by a drunken aunt at a family wedding, for those 50 excruciating minutes Martin was, admittedly, in the most unenviable of situations, having to gauge when to nod and smile, and when to reply, but only gently enough so as not to cause a scene in front of the bride and groom.

It could explain (to a point) why plámásing Micheál let Trump’s praise of his “favourite Irish person” Conor McGregor slide, since aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile, and didn’t point out that the disgraced slugger is so unpopular here that he was booed by even Limp Bizkit fans at a 3Arena gig during the week.

Entirely less forgivable, however, was the fact that not alone did he not pull the prez up on his claim that Ireland’s housing crisis is a “good problem” because it means we’re “doing so well” that we “can’t produce houses fast enough”, but that he practically gave him a bualadh bos for his “pretty good answer”.

By the way, I’m not for one second buying that the Fianna Fáil leader has never seen Sleepless in Seattle, and doesn’t know who Rosie O’Donnell is, after he silently grinned his way through a question about the comedian revealing this week that she moved to Ireland in January to escape the “cruelty” of the current administration during the press conference.

Nonethless, if the mild-mannered exchange somehow helps stop Trump’s newest threat of a crippling 200pc tariff on EU alcohol including Irish whiskey, then forget St Patrick - this time next year, we’ll all be raising a toast to supine St Michéal.