WASHINGTON, D. C. – Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday welcomed Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin for an early St. Patrick’s day breakfast at the vice-presidential residence, where the trans-Atlantic politicos bonded on socks, family vacations and the Appalachian trail.
Vance joked that the event was an occasion for his wife, Usha, to wear a pair of green slacks she’d had in her closet for years. He said he wore a pair of shamrock-themed socks to welcome Ireland’s head-of-state to the United States, urging Martin to defend his sartorial choice to President Donald Trump if his boss notices them when the pair visited the Oval Office later in the day.
“The President is a very big fan of conservative dress,” said Vance. “This is an important part of cementing the Irish American relationship, and that’s the only reason I’m wearing these socks.”
Later in the day, Trump told him he loved the socks.
Their cordial banter contrasted with Vance’s pugnacious attitude during an Oval Office meeting last month with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, where Vance called him “disrespectful” as he upbraided him for being insufficiently thankful for the U.S. aid his country had received.
When Zelenskyy asked Vance if he’d ever visited Ukraine, Vance expressed disdain at the prospect of going on a “propaganda tour.”
Vance, who is of Scots-Irish descent, fondly recalled a 2023 vacation he took to Ireland in his Wednesday speech before the breakfast attended by guests that included Ireland’s ambassador to the United States, Geraldine Byrne Nason, and public officials of Irish descent, such as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“I actually had a week where we could go anywhere, and we decided to go to Ireland,” Vance told the group. “It’s such a remarkable combination of incredible community, as we were talking about earlier, a beautiful landscape, but also a lot of interesting technological growth.”
Martin thanked Vance for hosting the breakfast, and for his tips on “sock diplomacy.” He said that St. Patrick’s Day celebrations actually began in the United States, as Irish immigrants “far from hearth and home marked a day in memory of the family that they had left behind.
“Over time, the celebrations grew in strength and number, and today we are deeply proud that March 17 is a day to showcase our rich culture and great friendships across the world,” he continued, praising the United States for being the first country to recognize its independence from the United Kingdom in 1924.
In the 100 years of diplomatic relations between Ireland in the United States, he said the two nations have built “deep and enduring political, cultural and economic bonds, greatly enriching our two nations in the process.”
He said that kinship was built on the ties between the two nations, particularly the generations of Irish who relocated to the United States, such as Vance’s forebears, who he said played a “key role in shaping this great country, and Appalachia in particular.”
“I was fascinated to learn that in recent years, geologists discovered that the Appalachian Trail does not begin and end in North America,” Martin continued. “Part of it is in Ireland and Britain, split millions of years ago by the movement of tectonic plates. It was not so surprising then that Irish and Scottish emigrants upon arrival in the United States, chose a familiar landscape on which to found their new lives.”
Martin also applauded the U.S. role in establishing peace several decades ago between warring factions of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, describing the lasting peace in Ireland today as “a signature achievement of U.S. foreign policy.”
He said Ireland is willing to “play our part in supporting work to end conflict and to secure peace in the Ukraine or in the Middle East or wherever.
“We welcome very much the unrelenting focus and effort that President Trump and his administration has brought to the task, to this task from his very first days in office,” said Martin. “As it has always been, the United States remains an indispensable partner and global actor.”
