{"id":629162,"date":"2026-09-19T03:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T03:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/629162\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T03:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T03:02:09","slug":"gareth-ocallaghan-during-his-visit-to-ireland-donald-trump-revealed-a-surprisingly-softer-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/629162\/","title":{"rendered":"Gareth O’Callaghan: During his visit to Ireland Donald Trump revealed a surprisingly softer side"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those words by legendary golfer Payne Stewart, who won 11 PGA Tours during his short lifetime, crossed my mind last weekend as Donald Trump<\/a> revealed a softer side no one envisaged while visiting his beloved golf resort.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don’t play golf. To the best of my knowledge, nor does Miche\u00e1l Martin.<\/p>\n

Much like the afterglow of a single Midleton malt, this was the mellow golfer Trump; Grandad Trump who stepped cautiously down the steps of his $400m personal transporter \u2014 a gift from his friends in the Qatari government \u2014 followed by his grandkids; as distinct from \u201ca whole civilisation will die tonight\u201d Trump.<\/p>\n

Maybe it was the bloodline-in-tow, or the salt sea air in the heavenly scenery, or the \u201ccouldn’t really give a toss if he\u2019s here\u201d attitude of many of the spectators who gathered in Doonbeg to watch Lowry win like a Goliath among his peers.<\/p>\n

\n For much of the weekend, Trump looked and sounded like he was coming out of a general anaesthetic. Whatever it was, for the short time he spent among us, he lost that fearsome madman attitude and his tendency to rant obliquely.\n <\/p>\n

In stark contrast, Miche\u00e1l Martin had a gentle calculated-yet-detached way about him, which is something Trump is not familiar with in his style of doing business. It felt like chalk and cheese watching them sitting side by side in Farmleigh.<\/p>\n

Martin exudes this almost pained expression as though he\u2019s expecting bad news while his hand tends to claw at his right knee whenever he sits next to Trump. It\u2019s a classic primeval response to an inner sense of deep discomfort and uncertainty. Call it a tentative fear of what could happen at any moment (but hopefully won\u2019t).<\/p>\n

That said, this was Citizen Trump, as distinct from President Trump; the only business that pressured him last weekend was the promise of basking in his favourite pastime. Nothing else really mattered \u2013 much to the chagrin of the world media who were hoping for a clanger or a cliffhanger. For the catastrophist, it was an anti-climax.<\/p>\n

Martin the lion tamer<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s presence as he hovered close to Trump across the weekend was like a classic study in subconscious pacifism. Call him the lion tamer. This lion loves to be teased on his terms, but everything that moves and mutters around him is in danger of being devoured. It can all go horribly wrong in that split second.<\/p>\n

Few words as possible is the pacifier\u2019s greatest gift. Give Trump the floor. Call him out abruptly when he\u2019s in mid-flight and you pay a high price. Let him share his mercurial views on a united Ireland<\/a>. He\u2019s on vacation, not a state visit.<\/p>\n

He might be the most unpredictable and shameful bigot on the planet right now, but when you can\u2019t see the hand he\u2019s playing it\u2019s best to veer on the side of caution. Become his confidante and you\u2019ll be welcomed back. Animosity becomes his gunpowder.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Trump\u2019s ever-shifting manifesto of strategies, confrontation is met with retaliation. And tariffs, more tariffs, and taxes. Trump is a walking Monopoly board.<\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald Trump and his son Eric watch the golf last weekend.<\/p>\n

That Zelenskyy moment now determines the sparring rules when it comes to the art of walking a thin line between gentle platitudes and trading insults. Ten fiery minutes of global humiliation resulted in Trump taking to social media. \u201cCome back when you\u2019re ready for peace,\u201d he wrote, before Zelenskyy\u2019s car had a chance to pull away from the White House.<\/p>\n

Weighing up what the lion had for breakfast is crucial before stepping into the cage. Sometimes it\u2019s best not to cut to the heart of what your critics are urging you to say; mostly they\u2019re thinking of the next day\u2019s headlines, not your global reputation. It\u2019s called avoiding the madman theory.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump is a Holmesian bad man,\u00a0 to use a term coined by US Supreme Court judge Oliver Wendell Holmes. \u201cIf you want to know the law, you must look at it as a bad man does, who cares only for the material consequences,\u201d he famously said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNot as a good one, who finds his reasons for conduct, whether inside the law or outside of it, in the vaguer sanctions of conscience.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether Trump has a conscience or not wasn\u2019t for public speculation on this visit. He gets to talk about anything he wants. That\u2019s the deal and he makes the rules. The man who randomly starts a war on a whim was in town to watch golf. Ireland was placed on notice.<\/p>\n

Last weekend was one of those extremely rare occasions where he appeared to humble himself out of respect \u2014 but for what? Nothing constrains him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n For a man who pushes the boundaries of corruption and authoritarianism, he was in a comfort zone that caught many by surprise. There was no political agenda. He was out of the office. At one point on Sunday he looked like any of the other punters standing at the first tee.\n <\/p>\n

Even his armed detail, wearing their Peter Miller golf attire, seamlessly fitted into the backdrop. There seemed no need to make an effort, and we almost felt comfortable enough to fall in line and bear witness.<\/p>\n

Then the Holmesian bad man rewarded us all on Sunday for not pissing him off, like schoolchildren who are told they have no homework for the weekend. As though he had just tossed a coin, he was going to take the tariffs off Irish whiskey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The US is Ireland\u2019s biggest export of Irish whiskey, accounting for one-third of global sales. Was that the ghost of John Jameson reminding us to “live a bit more and fear a bit less”? No. It\u2019s just Trump\u2019s game of performative authoritarianism as he plays cat and mouse with his tariffs. It\u2019s all part of the madman theory. Let\u2019s go back in time.<\/p>\n

In The Arrogance of Power, published in 2000, Irish author and BBC journalist Anthony Summers digs deep into the clandestine world of another Holmesian bad man \u2014 namely Richard Nixon, addicted to power and intrigue, whose era was characterised by a \u201crogue state\u201d. Criminal behaviour is his legacy. Trump makes no secret of his admiration for Nixon, and has no issue with his leaving office in total disgrace.<\/p>\n

Madman theory<\/p>\n

Nixon came up with the madman theory in 1968 while chatting to his future White House chief of staff Bob Haldeman. He desperately wanted Ho Chi Minh to beg for peace as part of Nixon\u2019s efforts to end the war. If his enemy started to believe he was \u201csomewhat crazy\u201d and \u201ccapable of the bloodiest brutality\u201d, then North Vietnam would have no choice but to cave in to his demands.<\/p>\n

When the odds are stacked against your best efforts in a time of war and then your adversaries find out that your mental instability could mean your hand is sitting on the nuclear button, then such inventive exaggeration should pay off in your favour. It didn\u2019t, as history recalls.<\/p>\n

But was his plan for how the enemy might perceive his feigning insanity simply a game, or was he really deranged? His psychiatrist of more than 40 years even admitted \u201che might not be the right man to have his finger on the nuclear trigger\u201d.<\/p>\n

Adopting Nixon\u2019s madman theory by posturing the impression of insanity to an enemy, like Iran who Trump randomly chose to bomb and whose civilisation he threatened to \u201cerase\u201d, can buy you time; or worse if the country you\u2019ve gone to war with has also adopted the madman theory. Who\u2019s to say what will happen? All that is clear right now are shades of Nixon and North Vietnam in 1972.<\/p>\n

Talking to an American tourist in Dublin last weekend, whose only gripe was that Trump was also here, his overall impression of us is how we gently disarm and integrate visitors with our charm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica has changed horribly,\u201d he said to me. \u201cIreland hasn\u2019t; it\u2019s still a welcoming place, and I hope it stays like that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maybe Trump sensed that \u2014 when a Holmesian bad man met a political pacifist \u2014 and for a short time a game of golf eclipsed the inanity of war. Kudos to Miche\u00e1l Martin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Those words by legendary golfer Payne Stewart, who won 11 PGA Tours during his short lifetime, crossed my…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[969,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-629162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-donald-trump","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629162","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=629162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}