Eimear McGovern: Who can blame Donald Trump for being bored of Northern Ireland?

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It’s hardly surprising that former US President and now-general persona non grata Donald Trump almost fell asleep when he was forced to discuss Northern Ireland with ex-Prime Minister Theresa May. Even for those of us who live here, it can sometimes be hard to drum up any enthusiasm.

According to a new book by New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman, he instead wanted to discuss an offshore windfarm near one of his Scottish golf courses. You’d wonder whether he knows that Scotland and Northern Ireland are different places?

Mr Trump has often been accused of being self-serving, with more interest in his own business endeavors than the more minor position he held of being leader of the free world. But this may have been a wise decision on his part to steer clear of our messy affairs here in Northern Ireland, whether for reasons of boredom or otherwise.

Truthfully, even those of us who live here would sometimes steer clear of NI as a topic of conversation. It’s not so for politicians as they wheel and deal when they meet at the dinner table and on the golf course, but it’s often thought it’s more polite to steer clear of politics in conversation.

That means Northern Ireland, as probably one of the most political places on earth, is probably off the table. Where do you even begin with our perennial problems that arise each year? The collapse and re-establishment of Stormont, our frequent arguments about orange and green issues as the same holidays and dates come and go, the quagmire of hospital waiting lists… it’s all a case of same old, same old, year in and year out in this part of the world.

Of course, it’s not a unique situation to Northern Ireland. Elsewhere on this island and probably in every country, they too have the same problems that refuse to go away and issues that rear their ugly heads over and over again.

It’s not saying much when the division over the Northern Ireland Protocol is one of the most prominent news stories in which we’ve been involved for years and even this doesn’t manage to pique the interest of many who would rather continue their lives in as much ignorance of Brexit as possible.

Even the British media has over many years failed to feature Northern Ireland in their pages. Over the years, interest dropped off in the Troubles despite the frequency of horrific events and even paramilitary killings became boring.

Why is that? Maybe because our problems in Northern Ireland, as outlined above, seem futile to others not from here, who find them difficult to understand and even more challenging to think of a solution to seemingly intractable problems.

No one has ever accused Donald Trump of being a very deep thinker that may be the understatement of the century. So who can blame him for not wanting to discuss something he doesn’t understand and to which he himself has no solution?

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