IT’S a legend that’s as old as the hills, or at least as old as Ire­land’s mem­ber­ship of the EU: our ‘speak­ing out of both sides of our mouth’ approach to deal­ing with Wash­ing­ton and Brus­sels. Although we’ve been a mem­ber of the EU for over 50 years, the per­cep­tion still exists that we pri­or­it­ise our self-interest with Wash­ing­ton over our oblig­a­tions as an EU mem­ber. From our cor­por­ate tax deals to our less-thanamaz­ing enforce­ment of the

EU’s digital rules, Ire­land is often viewed as the US’s plant around the EU nego­ti­at­ing table.

In that con­text, Don­ald

Trump’s men­acing approaches about Green­land pose a fun­da­mental ques­tion for Ire­land. Namely, what exactly is Ire­land’s pos­i­tion when Amer­ican expan­sion­ism dir­ectly threatens European ter­rit­orial integ­rity? If Wash­ing­ton and Brus­sels find them­selves in a ser­i­ous dis­pute, where does Dub­lin stand?

That’s why it’s time for Ire­land to man up on transat­lantic rela­tions. Our cur­rent approach – try­ing to please every­one while com­mit­ting to noth­ing – won’t long sur­vive con­tact with hard geo­pol­it­ical real­it­ies.

The Irish estab­lish­ment still des­per­ately clings to the fic­tion that we occupy some unique space in Amer­ican affec­tions. We tell ourselves that Irish-Amer­ic­ans in Con­gress will always pro­tect our interests, that cul­tural ties will trump real­politik, that our shared his­tory guar­an­tees Amer­ican good­will. This is non­sense, a kind of col­lect­ive Tír na nÓg illu­sion that makes us look like fools on the European stage.

THE harsh real­ity is that Ire­land has will­ingly allowed itself to become hope­lessly depend­ent on a small sub­set of US tech and pharma com­pan­ies. Without their bumper cor­por­ate tax receipts, Ire­land would have run con­tinu­ous budget defi­cits since our last bank­ruptcy in 2010.

US com­pan­ies are – quite lit­er­ally – keep­ing the lights on in Ire­land. And that’s why Green­land – regard­less of the shortterm relief brought by the recent Davos ‘frame­work’ – should provide a wake-up call to Ire­land in three ways.

First, it must force Ire­land to finally get ser­i­ous about our own defence and secur­ity. We’ve spent dec­ades hid­ing behind US power while sim­ul­tan­eously refus­ing to con­trib­ute mean­ing­fully to European defence.

We’ve enjoyed the bene­fits of the transat­lantic secur­ity umbrella while sneer­ing at those who actu­ally main­tain it. We’ve preached about inter­na­tional law and sov­er­eignty while rely­ing on oth­ers to defend these prin­ciples. That’s why Brit­ish fighter jets patrol Irish skies and why Irish fish­er­men – not the Irish navy – are forced to con­front Rus­sian ships.

Ire­land needs clear and mean­ing­ful actions to show Wash­ing­ton and Brus­sels that we are ser­i­ous about secur­ing our own bor­ders, and pro­tect­ing under­sea archi­tec­ture in Irish waters. Cred­ib­il­ity is earned, not given.

Second, Ire­land needs to make up its mind about what kind of EU it wants to see develop in the com­ing dec­ades. Is it a deeper EU, with more integ­ra­tion? A Brus­sels that can bet­ter pro­mote and defend European interests on a global stage?

Or is it a multi-speed Europe where coali­tions of the will­ing pur­sue fur­ther integ­ra­tion in spe­cific areas without all other mem­ber states hav­ing to take part? Or per­haps, even a stripped-back union which gives in to Amer­ican threats and focuses solely on a very small set of eco­nomic issues?

Cur­rently, Ire­land favours a hodge-podge of unco-ordin­ated ideas. A big­ger EU with a big­ger budget, but little over­arch­ing stra­tegic frame­work. Put simply, Ire­land needs to take the oblig­a­tions of its EU mem­ber­ship a lot more ser­i­ously.

Third, Ire­land needs to fun­da­ment­ally reas­sess how we think about transat­lantic rela­tions. ‘Sure it will be grand’ is not a coher­ent polit­ical strategy. We need to aban­don the com­fort­able myths we’ve told ourselves for dec­ades. It means recog­nising that cul­tural affin­ity mat­ters far less than stra­tegic con­tri­bu­tion.

It means under­stand­ing that if we want to be taken ser­i­ously by Amer­ica, we first need to be taken ser­i­ously by our European part­ners – and that requires genu­ine com­mit­ment.

The real­ity is bru­tal but simple – Amer­ica doesn’t need Ire­land.

We provide some use­ful tax arrange­ments and a con­veni­ent Eng­lish-speak­ing loc­a­tion. Bey­ond that, we’re stra­tegic­ally irrel­ev­ant to Wash­ing­ton.

Our refusal to con­trib­ute to European defence, our main­ten­ance of the absurd ‘triple lock’, our chronic under­in­vest­ment in secur­ity – all of this sig­nals to Amer­ica that Ire­land is fun­da­ment­ally unser­i­ous about the chal­lenges facing the West. Because the world Trump rep­res­ents is one where power mat­ters more than sen­ti­ment, where trans­ac­tional rela­tion­ships replace tra­di­tional alli­ances, and where small nations without cred­ible defence cap­ab­il­it­ies are simply ignored.

In this envir­on­ment, Ire­land’s approach to transat­lantic rela­tions isn’t just out­dated, it’s harm­ful to our interests and belies an inab­il­ity to grasp the changed world we now live in.

*Published by The Irish Mail on Sunday on 25 January 2026