Ireland is not ready for Trump

It will be an uncertain year for Ireland. The Irish economy has for a long time been artificially propped up by the billons it accrues in tax revenues from American tech companies based in the country. Many dread Donald Trump’s return, fearing he will force these firms to move back to the US.

Those fears have been compounded by the Irish government’s bizarre quest to stigmatise and sanction Israel – perhaps the only country in the world to be more popular in American minds than Ireland. In February, then-taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Spanish President Pedro Sanchez wrote to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and asked her to conduct an ‘urgent review’ into the bloc’s trade relationship with Israel. In October, the new taoiseach, Simon Harris, said Ireland would not wait ‘for everybody in Europe to move on the issue of trade [with Israel]’.

The fact that the only official Irish recognition of Hannukah came from a short press release issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs further compounded the sense of abandonment felt by many of Ireland’s rapidly dwindling Jewish community.