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Nine months before Donald Trump was voted in as US president for the first time in 2016, he was asked at a campaign rally about a large golf course he purchased on a picturesque sliver of Ireland’s Atlantic coast.
“We spent a lot of money on making it just perfecto and now it’s doing great. But I don’t care about that stuff anymore. It is like small potatoes,” he said.
His interest in the site appears to have suddenly been rekindled. This weekend, protesters will turn out at the course in Doonbeg, Co Clare and across Ireland as he makes his first visit to the island as US president since 2019.
Some 4,000 Irish and American security personnel are expected to be deployed over the two-day visit, which begins on Saturday, at a reported cost to the taxpayer of €20 million (£17.16m).
Mr Trump is due to meet Taoiseach Micheál Martin and president Catherine Connolly at Phoenix Park, which has been closed since Thursday for the occasion, before flying to Shannon tomorrow afternoon.
From there, he will go on to the tiny village of Doonbeg to see the end of the Irish Open at his own Mr Trump-stamped resort before departing on Sunday evening.
Donald Trump speaks to the media before boarding Air Force One to depart for his scheduled two-day visit to Ireland on September 11 (Getty)
Opposition to the Mr Trump administration is broad across Ireland and a recent poll by the Sunday Independent and Ireland Thinks found as much as 69 per cent of the public do not support the visit.
A coalition of political organisations, advocacy groups and individuals are now planning to turn out for protests over the weekend in Dublin and Doonbeg with a clear message that the president is not welcome.
Sarah Clancy, a community worker from Clare, said they have “never had so much reason to protest” as now, citing what she termed Mr Trump’s support for Israel in Gaza, the “pointless” war with Iran and resulting spike in energy costs, and the “overall coarseness and crassness” of the US president.
“People are very clear that what we are dealing with here is a racist who is profoundly misogynistic, that he was [found liable] of [sexual abuse] by a civil court, that he is very homo-lesbo-transphobic. And overall in Ireland we are not those things,” she said.
“There is misogyny, there is racism, there is homo-lesbo-transphobia. But the people at large, that is not the image that Irish people have of ourselves, of people who live here … So there is much more readiness, I think, to name Mr Trump as a tyrannical authoritarian fascist crazy person.”
Protesters hold a large “Rapists Not Welcome” banner, alongside posters supporting women who have accused Trump of sexual assault at O’Connell Bridge on September 10, 2026, ahead of Trump’s visit (Getty)
Ms Clancy told The Independent that people had been preparing for this weekend’s protests for a long time, and that they would be regarded in left-wing liberal circles as something “that you don’t want to miss”.
“There is a real sense of disgust and repulsion about Mr Trump among people here in this country, that he clearly is war crazed, and there a lot of anger at present,” she said.
Journalist and author Justine McCarthy told The Independent she would be heading to Doonbeg to join the demonstrations to signal that “we don’t want him here”.
“The reasons I’m protesting are first of all as a woman, because he’s a sex offender,” she said. “Secondly, because of Palestine, America’s collusion in the onslaught on Gaza… and because of America’s unprovoked war on Iran… Also the third reason is climate change because he called climate change a hoax and he is damaging our planet.”
Mr Trump was found liable for sexual abuse by a jury in 2023. Because the trial was in civil court rather than criminal, he was not registered as a sex offender.
A Garda armed response support vehicle parked at the Irish Open course in Doonbeg, Co Clare, ahead of Trump’s visit, on 11 September (PA)
Ms McCarthy said she did not care whether Mr Trump sees their protests as he would likely ignore it anyway. For her, it was important that “the rest of the world will know that we don’t want him here”.
Ailbhe Smyth, an Irish academic, feminist and LGBTQ activist, said there was a felt “ethical and moral responsibility” to “stand up and say, ‘no, we do not support you’”.
She said that fundamentally protesters would want “for the historical moment to be one of the people who stood up to this terrible man”.
“One of the interesting things is that it does bring really political parties from the center right over to right across the left together. They don’t necessarily get out and all march together, but there is a general consensus … here in Ireland that is solidly 100% anti-Trump.”
Insiders are determined to get through the two-day visit without issue. After landing in Dublin, Mr Trump is expected to be flown directly to Phoenix Park for talks away from the demonstrations before heading to Doonbeg.
A senior Irish government official told Politico: “He invited himself to Ireland to see the golf. That’s grand. We need to get him through Dublin as smoothly and trouble-free as possible. Smiling faces, nice pictures, no friction.”
Ms McCarthy said that the capital could become a “no-go zone” with major protests anticipated through the city.
Around 1,000 US Secret Service members are expected to be deployed as part of the major security operation this weekend. Snipers and anti-drone technology will be deployed to see off potential threats, according to the Irish Times, while Phoenix Park will remain closed until Saturday evening, long after Mr Trump has left Dublin.
Political parties have come out in opposition to the visit, citing the president’s record at home and abroad, his attacks on his European allies and support for far-right parties.
Ahead of the visit, Labour Dublin spokesperson Aodhán Ó Ríordáin MEP said “the red carpet should not be rolled out” for a president who has undermined the EU and international law.
She said Mr Trump was accused of costing the Irish people millions in higher energy prices due to the war with Iran, siding with autocrats like Putin over Ukraine, meddling in European politics, and supporting “Israel’s war and genocide against the Palestinian people”.
Sinn Féin party leader Mary Lou McDonald also welcomed protests occurring over the weekend and added that her party would be joining the demonstrations.
“I think that is quite correct given the scale of the breaches of international law, given the genocide in Palestine, events in Gaza and on the West Bank, we are seeing settler violence at a rate that is literally unspeakable,” she said, adding that she hoped President Connolly would raise Gaza during their brief meeting on Saturday.
Donald Trump at the Trump International Golf Links & Hotel in Doonbeg, Co. Clare, during a previous visit to Ireland (PA Archive)
The ‘No Welcome for Mr Trump’ protest is set to gather from 1pm on Saturday in Dublin, shortly after his arrival, to march towards the Dáil, the Irish Parliament. Demonstrations are also expected in Doonbeg.
Joe Russell, general manager of Mr Trump International Golf Links & Hotel in Doonbeg, told RTÉ they were expecting some protests in the tiny village, but that “An Garda Síochána are well experienced in dealing with them and we’ll leave that in their capable hands”.