US President Donald Trump arrived at his Doonbeg Gold Links on Saturday afternoon for the Irish Open after a brief visit to Dublin.
President Donald Trump's whirlwind trip to Ireland is well underway as he arrived at Doonbeg for the Irish Open on day three of the tournament.
Trump happened to arrive just as Shane Lowry was about to take a shot at the second hole, but thankfully, it didn't seem to phase the Irishman who is still leading the tournament.
Newstalk's Henry McKean told The Pat Kenny Show that there was a bit of a "circus atmosphere" around the town and the golf course, and spoke to locals about their thoughts on having the Irish Open, and the US President, in the town.
Henry shared: "I think most of the fans just want to watch the golf. They are interested seeing Donald [Trump] on the 18th, watching on with them. They're finding that fascinating.
"And remember, we're in a really remote, beautiful windswept part of West Clare, like we're a good 40 minutes from anything.
"We are so isolated, so local people have really benefited from this tournament coming here and also, since Trump's family bought this hotel many years back, they've really benefited and you can see that.
"Most of them are wearing, they're not wearing MAGA hats, but they're wearing Trump Doonbeg outfits. So they're really getting behind it.
"But this is a mixture of politics. It's a mixture of a golf tournament. It's also, if I can use the phrase, there's tents everywhere, so there's a real circus atmosphere to it as well.
"So it's something I've never actually seen before. It's like a ploughing championships, but on speed."
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Henry also spoke to Doonbeg local Michael O'Doherty about the impact of having the Irish Open and the US President in the town, and he shared how "amazing" it was.
Mr O'Doherty said: "It's absolutely amazing. I mean, it's a kind of a twin-track thing, isn't it? You have the golf and then you have the visit of an American president. So the golf itself is amazing.
"I mean, I am thinking back 25 years ago when playing football here in Doonbeg, we used to come up here and there was nothing here. We look back now in such a short space of time and see how it's emerged and how it's come to this. It's absolutely amazing.
"Sometimes it's challenging to mix sport and politics, but given that Donald Trump and the Trump organisation own this amazing place, yeah, he's going to make some comments like [unified Ireland]...
"... Look, there's a lot of negativity around the world. Here we have, you know, whatever, 70,000, 80,000 people who are out here for three or four days enjoying themselves, having fun, people meeting each other out in the fresh air, you know, watching these amazing golfers that you'd only used to see on TV and whatever. So it's absolutely fantastic.
"The great thing about this, it's a great opportunity now for Doonbeg, West Clare and Clare itself to, I suppose, market itself on the platform that's already created for it now."
Shane Lowry is hoping to claim his first solo title since 2022, and will tee off for his final round at 2:05pm.
Main image: US President Donald Trump during a meeting with Taoiseach Micheal Martin at Farmleigh House, Picture by: Ben Birchall/Rollingnews.ie
