‘Feather in everybody’s cap’: Trump says he’d love to see a ‘unified’ Ireland

US President Donald Trump said he would "love to see" a united Ireland during a visit to Dublin. He made the remarks while meeting Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin before travelling to his golf course in the west of Ireland. Trump said reunification of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland would be "a fantastic thing" and that it would be "a great feather in everybody's cap".

The island of Ireland has been split between the Irish republic in the south and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, since 1921. According to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Trump claimed Irish reunification as inevitable, adding it "may as well happen now". The UK Prime Minister's office had previously pointed to a rejection of an immediate border poll.

Trump's comments drew a stern rebuke from the Conservatives in the United Kingdom. The Qatar Tribune reported that Conservative deputy leader Alex Burghart said Trump was "very wrong". Former Republican Congressman Mick Mulvaney, Trump's special envoy to Northern Ireland, cautioned against reading too much into the president's remarks, stating that this did not represent a shift in US foreign policy.

Brief written by urgent.news from The Sydney Morning Herald, Malay Mail, The Age, Qatar Tribune, BBC World — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.