{"id":627582,"date":"2026-09-17T15:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/627582\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T15:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:02:09","slug":"trump-asked-president-connolly-if-irish-unity-would-be-resolved-during-her-lifetime-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/627582\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump asked President Connolly if Irish unity would be \u2018resolved\u2019 during her lifetime \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president Donald Trump<\/a> asked President Catherine Connolly<\/a> if she believed the question of Irish unity would be \u201cresolved\u201d in her lifetime during a meeting at \u00c1ras an Uachtar\u00e1in last weekend. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe asked me my thoughts on the North<\/a>, and I referred back to the Good Friday agreement in 1998 and [the issue of] consensus \u2026 He asked me specifically, \u2018Would it be resolved during my lifetime?\u2019 And I said I hoped it would,\u201d Connolly said on Thursday. <\/p>\n

The 1998 Belfast Agreement stipulates that Irish unity must be agreed to by a majority of people in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. <\/p>\n

Connolly said that during the 20-minute meeting, she spoke about her role under the Constitution before Trump raised the question of unity. His public remarks on the question caused significant political reaction<\/a> during his visit to Ireland. <\/p>\n

The President was speaking on the second day of an official visit to Scotland<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Asked about her conversation with Trump on Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza, and whether she described it as a genocide, the President said: \u201cWe discussed genocide. We discussed that we will never accept genocide, and we can never accept the normalisation of war, absolutely we discussed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connolly also addressed the prospect of a European Union \u201csecurity council\u201d raised by the bloc\u2019s leader Ursula von der Leyen this week. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would have concern that the language in relation to war is intensifying, and the absence of diplomatic measures to stop war and to bring peace is of deep concern to me, and I\u2019d say the majority of people in Ireland,\u201d Connolly said, while stressing she had not read in detail about von der Leyen\u2019s comments. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s comments on unity crossed a lineOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

On Wednesday evening, Connolly attended a private dinner hosted by Britain\u2019s king Charles. She is attending further engagements in Glasgow and Coatbridge on Thursday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump asked President Catherine Connolly if she believed the question of Irish unity would be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3656,969,61,60,43,2443,9036,115],"class_list":["post-627582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-catherine-connolly","tag-donald-trump","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-scotland","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}