Trump Sees United Ireland as 'Logical', Martin Says After Doonbeg Talks

Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin has said Donald Trump regards a united Ireland as the logical arrangement for the island, following remarks by the US president in favour of reunification.

Speaking to journalists at the US president's golf course in the village of Doonbeg, Martin said Trump's position reflected a straightforward reading of the island's geography and politics. "This is his view. He believes unity is the logical way for the island to be configured and organized," Martin said.

The comments came a day after Trump, during a meeting with Martin in Dublin, said he would like to see the Republic of Ireland reunited with Northern Ireland. On Sunday, Martin joined the American leader at Doonbeg to watch the final day of the Irish Open.

Martin said the subject had also come up over lunch, describing Trump as someone looking in on the island from the outside and concluding that unification appeared inevitable. "My conversations with him and even over lunch, he's looking at it from a perspective of looking in on the island of Ireland and logically saying to me it seems inevitable that it should be unified," Martin said.

The Irish premier said he had walked Trump through how peace was achieved, recalling that the US president remembers the violence and conflict of the Troubles. He described how the British and Irish governments worked together to enable peace across the island's various traditions, calling that the genius of the Good Friday Agreement.

Whether Northern Ireland should be Irish or British has been the fault line behind decades of violence in the six-county region, which has a Protestant majority and remains part of the United Kingdom. Previous American presidents, including Democrat Joe Biden, who has strong emotional ties to Ireland, have avoided commenting directly on the question.