America celebrates Irish culture and politics on St. Patrick’s Day
Americans once again donned their green beads and shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, celebrating the largest Irish diaspora in the world. St. Patrick’s Day has become an opportunity for Ireland and the United States to celebrate their rich cultural and political connections. New York City is hosting its 264th St. Patrick’s Day Parade today – marking the oldest and longest standing St. Patrick’s Day parade in the world. The first parade was held in 1762, predating America’s Declaration of Independence.
Major cities across the United States hosted their own St. Patrick’s Day parades this weekend – including Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Chicago. Chicago even dyes the Chicago River green each year to mark the celebration.
President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson kicked off the Irish celebrations last week by welcoming Taoiseach Micheál Martin to the White House.
While the first wave of Irish immigrants arrived in the United States in the 1700s, immigration reports reveal the Great Famine in the 1800s nearly doubled the population of Irish in the United States – as over a million Irish died from starvation while another million immigrated to the United States.
Trump, a native New Yorker, spoke with pride of New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, watching “hundreds of citizens decked in Irish green” marching up Fifth Avenue and past “the most beautiful cathedral in the world,” St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
The Taoiseach’s trip to Washington, D.C., began with a breakfast at the vice president’s residence, followed by the annual Friends of Ireland luncheon and a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office answering questions from reporters.
“Irish America has been at the heart of shaping this great nation. The ideals of liberty, democracy and equality of opportunity forged in this country did much to inspire Irish independence. Our histories are interconnected because our people are interconnected. Today, as the president has said, more than 30 million people claim Irish ancestry in the United States,” Martin said.
The celebratory events were not without some political tension when Trump said the United States has a “massive deficit” with Ireland because they “took our pharmaceutical companies away from presidents who didn’t know what they were doing.” Trump said the European Union, which includes Ireland, “treats us very badly.”
Martin countered Trump’s comments, saying, “It’s a two-way street to where we are investing a lot more in America now.” However, Trump maintained that reciprocal tariffs were only fair.
Martin presented Trump with a crystal bowl filled with shamrocks, a tradition that dates back to 1952 to symbolize the long-standing friendship between Ireland and the United States. Martin said the Shamrock Bowl ceremony is “an important moment to reflect upon the relationship between our two countries.”
Former President Bill Clinton helped negotiate the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which largely ended the violence in Ireland by establishing a power-sharing agreement between unionists and nationalists – strengthening the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Martin on Wednesday said former President Ronald Reagan initiated the United States’ role in the peace process, as the first U.S. president to visit Ireland. The Reagan administration helped develop the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, which laid the groundwork for the Good Friday Agreement.
“Nowhere is the strength of the U.S.-Irish relationship more in evident than in our own peace process. 44 years ago, President Reagan called for a just and peaceful solution to the conflict that has for so long devastated lives on our island. Politicians from both sides of the aisle rose to the occasion, and the lasting peace we enjoyed today on our island is a signature achievement of U.S. foreign policy, and this story of peace is one that we both wrote together,” Martin said.
