Posted on 03/17/2017 3:55:33 PM PDT by Jyotishi
Photo -- US President Donald Trump speaks alongside Taoiseach of Ireland Enda Kenny (L) during a St. Patrick’s Day Reception in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, March 16, 2017. (AFP)
Saint Patrick is believed to have been born somewhere in Britain.
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny caused a stir at the White House on the eve of Saint Patrick's day on Friday, pointedly telling President Donald Trump that the festival is in honor of an immigrant.
Before a sea of green-clad revelers in the East Room of the White House last night, Kenny made a pointed reference to controversies over Trump's immigration policies, as the president looked on. "It's fitting that we gather here each year to celebrate St Patrick and his legacy. He, too, of course, was an immigrant," Kenny said.
The saint is believed to have been born somewhere in Britain. "And though he is, of course, the patron saint of Ireland, for many people around the globe, he is also a symbol of, indeed, the patron of immigrants," Kenny said.
Around 35 million Americans claim Irish ancestry, ensuring that successive presidents have put on a green tie and greeted the Irish prime minister -- or Taoiseach -- to the White House on or around Saint Patrick's day. Trump praised Ireland as "a truly great country" and the Irish as "tough."
"I know a lot about the Irish -- they fight. They're tough," he joked.
This year Saint Patrick's falls on the day that Trump's ban on refugees and migrants from six majority Muslim countries was due to have gone into effect. The ban was halted by a federal judge, but Trump has vowed to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
Kenny, amid controversy in Ireland over whether he should have met Trump at all, pressed his point further. "The Irish have contributed to the economic, social, political and cultural life of this great country over the last 200 years," Kenny said.
The Irish "came to America because, deprived of liberty, deprived of opportunity, of safety, of even food itself, the Irish believed, four decades before Lady Liberty lifted her lamp, we were the 'wretched refuse on the teeming shore','" Kenny said. "We believed in the shelter of America, and the compassion of America, and the opportunity of America. We came, and we became Americans."
Up your Enda, Kennedy.
He was an involuntary immigrant, as were most of the early slaves in this country.
Ignorant PM! One must remember that the very best of the Irish have long since emigrated to the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc. That would include me very own ancestors.
Another in a record year of face palm moments, many many more to come.
Illegal immigrants flooding our border...
Islamic Followers killing U. S. Citizens...
The Enda common sense!
So what. Trump’s family were immigrants, too. So was his wife. So was his first wife.
That doesn’t mean we can let in every damn person in the world to our country.
The ‘illegal immigrants’ don't want to do that, they want this country to turn into the hell hole they left and do not want to simulate into the American laws and productivity...
Muslims are the worst of the lot as they want us to take away our Country Founding of Christianity and turn it into the Sharia laws, which we will not be doing...
Wow...I learn something new everyday from libtard land...
Never know St. Patrick came to America to live off the fat off the government by sucking up all the government bennies allowed like many of immigrants do today....
We need to go back to the way it used to be...come to the land of opportunity, you better have a sponsor to the ability to survive without picking my pocket...
I personally cringed when IVanka gaga’ed over Justin Trudeau and went to that play with all of those UN ambassadors. The play about opening your arms to immigrants.
Of course, Justin threw shade at the US
Well Ivanka is a democrat and so there fore she’s an idiot like the rest of them...sorry President Trump but your ‘First Daughter’ isn’t much so far in my opinion!!!
If there are 35 million people of Irish ancestry in the U.S., then that means the Irish population in the U.S. is seven times larger than the Irish population in Ireland.
Do you think maybe Ireland would have been better off if all those people hadn't fled over the last 200+ years?
I’m not sure how St. Patrick could have immigrated to Ireland when, in the fourth century, Ireland didn’t even exist as a unified country. (Some would argue it still doesn’t.)
Had he been with the IRA (Irish Republican Army), then there would be no St. Patrick or a day to honor him. Being an immigrant is not the issue here, dumba$$.
There has to be an interesting internal dynamic.
Jared’s family is lib on the fathers side. The uncles side was Republican
His brother has a billion dollar company dependent on Obamacare
Ivanka leans lib
But Jared is sucking up to Ruthless Bannon
St. Patrick became an American? I’m confused.
Ireland should just have a referendum...I hear it’s going around...just ask Scotland!
He isn’t as much a patron saint of immigrants as he could be considered a patron saint of slaves - having been abducted as a child and escaped back to his family in Britain.
I can see your point. I’m not a big fan of schmoozing. I will say though that the U. S. does need some top level representation at some events like this.
Ivanka isn’t a top level government official, but she is representing the president (her father) in situations like this. I think foreign dignitaries could find this a compelling stand in.
What I found to be a major insult about her participation, was the media trying to play it off like she was on a date with Trudeau. By reading some of their accounts, you’d think she and he were the only two people in the group, if you didn’t pay attention to the very few words revealing otherwise.
Those very few words made all the rest embarrassingly twisted too.
Ireland is not on the list.. St. Paddy is OK.
STFU.
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