Letter from Wicklow/Larry Donnelly

About a presidential election … Trump and Putin

… Gaza, Israel, Ireland, and the United States

Recent presidential election campaigns in Ireland, in contrast with general, local, and European contests, have been nasty and often replete with ad hominem attacks.  The candidates are uniformly skewered; no one emerges unscathed.  There are multiple factors that help account for why that has proven the case.  But it is above all the primarily ceremonial nature of the post and the consequently relentless focus on the individual aspirants, not on the policies they espouse or the parties they might or might not represent, that make them comparatively ugly exercises in democracy.

Pundits have argued that a reticence to sign up to unforgiving scrutiny in traditional and social media explains why there is just one confirmed entrant at the time of writing, the Galway independent Catherine Connolly TD,– with election day likely to be in late October.  It is probable that Heather Humphreys of Fine Gael will also be on the ballot.  Beyond that, uncertainty abounds.

Fianna Fáil is reported to be considering Jim Gavin, the Dublin GAA manager from 2007-2019 and retired Irish Army officer. His is one of several names that have been mooted to date.  Former Taoiseach and co-architect of the Good Friday Agreement Bertie Ahern has long been rumoured to be interested, though it is extremely difficult to imagine that the current Fianna Fáil Taoiseach Micheál Martin would permit Ahern to be the standard bearer, given the troubling revelations with respect to his finances unearthed by the Mahon Tribunal and the anger of a substantial swath of the citizenry still aimed at him for the collapse of the “Celtic Tiger” economy.

Then there is Sinn Féin, whose leader, Mary Lou McDonald TD, would be formidable if she sought to succeed the incumbent Michael D Higgins in Áras an Uachtaráin.  Yet other than McDonald, there doesn’t appear to be a strong putative contender within the party, excepting maybe First Minister of Northern Ireland Michelle O’Neill, if she could be persuaded to stand.  Cognizant of this reality, as well as the poor performance of their presidential hopeful in 2018, Liadh Ní Riada, some Sinn Féin members believe that they should join fellow parties and groupings of the left in endorsing Catherine Connolly.

Lastly, as Boston Irish readers may be aware, a handful of celebrities, such as the controversial MMA fighter Conor McGregor and Michael Flatley of Riverdance fame, have expressed an ambition.  There are other political outsiders in the mix: 35-year-old entrepreneur Gareth Sheridan, lawyer Nick Delehanty, and the runner-up seven years ago, Peter Casey.  Because the three largest parties, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and Sinn Féin, alone have the numbers to facilitate ballot access pursuant to the applicable rules, it would be surprising if any of these wind up in the final reckoning.

At the moment, one would have to think that Heather Humphreys, a popular Presbyterian from a border county, is in a solid position.  Paddy Power has anointed her as the favourite, at 13/8 in the betting odds.  That said, there are so many balls up in the air that predictions are a fool’s errand.  Who will Fianna Fáil put forward and what will Sinn Féin do are the key questions.  And as more than one seasoned observer of Irish politics has commented, even at this delayed juncture, there is a chance that this country’s next president will be someone who has not featured in any of the conjecture thus far.  One thing is sure: it will be a fascinating race, well worth keeping an eye on from 3,000 miles away.

•••

The meeting in Alaska of President Donald Trump and his Russian “frenemy,” Vladimir Putin, garnered extensive coverage in the Irish media, as did the gathering at the White House hosted by President Trump and attended by Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a cadre of European heads of state.  Trump was lambasted and lampooned for offering the alleged war criminal Putin, for whom he seems to have a strange admiration, red carpet treatment on United States’ soil.  Putin “played” him once again was the chorus of the commentariat.

The reaction to the second summit was better.  Zelenskyy was not humiliated as he was in the Oval Office in February and Europeans made advantageous use of the opportunity to have their collective voice heard.  Reports that Trump may be willing to extend a future security guarantee to Ukraine and that Putin and Zelenskyy would have a “face to face” soon, followed by a “trilat” with Trump, were welcomed.  Regrettably, the latter apparent development has stalled.  Trump asserts that Putin is procrastinating due to his aversion to Zelenskyy.

Regardless, the truth is that the path to the end of the war on Ukraine is a heavily obstructed one.  How much is Zelenskyy prepared to give up and can Putin’s word that he will go no further be trusted?  There are no easy answers.  Moreover, it is crucial to remember what Trump is after here: getting headlines that a peace deal has been reached that he can tout to voters at home and bolstering his quixotic quest for a Nobel Peace Prize.  The conditions of a ceasefire, how sustainable it is, and what happens in the region in the longer term are broadly immaterial in his mind.  All of that – as his loyal deputy JD Vance constantly whispers in his ear – will be a quandary for Europe to deal with.

•••

Meanwhile, in the wake of a declaration of widespread famine in Gaza by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, pro-Palestinian activists here continue to push for sanctions at European level and for the Oireachtas to pass the Occupied Territories Bill, banning trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are deemed occupied territories in international law. 

As alluded to before in this space, this has drawn the attention of Israel’s passionate and influential defenders in the US, who claim there will be negative repercussions for Ireland’s economy and, in turn, its people when and if the Occupied Territories Bill becomes law.

Indeed, its enactment would kick into operation a litany of American state and federal statutes designed both to deter and to retaliate against nations’ participation in boycotts of any sort of Israel.  What precisely this could mean for Ireland, where one of six private sector jobs are directly or indirectly predicated on the presence of US multinational corporations, is hard to spell out definitively.  Suffice it to say that it will not be to the good, especially in a context in which Ireland’s ardent promotion of Palestinian statehood has already earned us a fierce foe in the America Israel Public Affairs Committee and in which Trump administration trade policy poses an existential threat to our economic model.

Identifying the risks the Occupied Territories Bill entails – as yours truly, economist Dan O’Brien, and ex-Irish Ambassador to the US Dan Mulhall have in print and on the airwaves this summer – has engendered quite vicious personal abuse on Twitter/X from many of its advocates.  But ours remains a valid point: Should Ireland make an essentially symbolic legal gesture that will do almost nothing to alleviate the horrific suffering of besieged Palestinians, but could do untold damage to this country? 

Sadly, the moral rectitude that underpins the Occupied Territories Bill – which I am fully supportive of in a vacuum – cannot be the sole driver of this small island’s foreign policy in a very imperfect world.

Larry Donnelly is a Boston born and educated attorney, a Law Lecturer at the University of Galway and a regular media commentator on politics, current affairs and law in the US and Ireland.  Twitter/X: @LarryPDonnelly