Festive bunting was strung between shops along the tiny main street in Doonbeg, a village on the west coast of Ireland. Temporary signs pointed the way down freshly paved roads toward the nearby Trump International golf resort, where the Irish Open is underway this week. The smell of paint hung in the air.
“If you stood still in the village long enough over the last two months, you would have been painted yourself,” Rita McInerney, a local councilor and lifelong resident, said with a laugh, speaking proudly about Doonbeg’s spruce-up ahead of the tournament. “It’s given us a great opportunity, I suppose, to get a lot done.”
President Trump is set to attend the tournament on Saturday and Sunday, a moment that will briefly cast the village of around 200 people into the international spotlight.
In Ireland, where polls consistently show a majority of people disagree with the president’s politics, Mr. Trump’s expected arrival has drawn opposition in the form of planned protests, newspaper columns denouncing his visit and even a sand mural. Yet in Doonbeg, a rural place where jobs can be scarce, there was also acknowledgment that the Trump-owned hotel plays an important role in the local economy.
The Trump Organization, Mr. Trump’s family business, has undoubtedly invested in the community, said Ms. McInerney, whose family has lived in the village for seven generations. And she noted that the diplomatic ties between Ireland and the United States were important to the entire country.
“There’s much of Donald Trump’s presidency and politics that I wouldn’t agree with,” she said. “But we also have to be mindful of the relationship between Ireland and the U.S.”
Others expressed their strong opposition to his visit, like Mary O’Donoghue, a community worker in the area, who said she had long refused to set foot in the hotel because of its connection to Mr. Trump.
“I think he has caused damage globally, but that is also felt locally,” said Ms. O’Donoghue, 58, pointing to fuel prices, which soared after the start of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and remain elevated, pushing up the cost of living around the world.
She said she recognized that many people working in the hotel felt deep pride about the Irish Open being hosted there for the first time, but said that many also felt torn, adding, “He’s robbed our enjoyment of it.”
After departing Washington on Friday night, Mr. Trump is scheduled to arrive in Dublin on Saturday morning, where he will meet with Micheál Martin, the taoiseach, or prime minister, of Ireland, and President Catherine Connolly, the ceremonial head of state, before traveling to Doonbeg. The visit comes as Mr. Trump’s relationship with Europe has grown deeply strained, with the president repeatedly laying into traditional allies for not joining his war on Iran and berating them over their policy choices on immigration and fossil fuels.
Mr. Martin has navigated this difficult diplomacy before, on two official visits to the White House for St. Patrick’s Day. On his latest visit in March, he won plaudits in Ireland for gently pushing back as the president rebuked European allies.
But Mr. Trump remains an unpopular figure in Ireland, a country with deep diplomatic, cultural and economic ties to the United States. A February poll from the Irish Times, conducted before the U.S. and Israel launched the war in Iran, suggested that 61 percent of those polled did not want President Trump to attend the Irish Open.
Thousands of protesters gathered in Dublin during his last official visit to Ireland in 2019. (President Trump also visited Doonbeg then, after meeting with government leaders.) Protests are again expected in Dublin on Saturday afternoon, with groups rallying under the message “No Welcome for Trump,” as well as at Shannon Airport and in Doonbeg.
On Tuesday, the discontent was already visible when a campaign group created a large sand mural on a Dublin beach with the message “No Kings.” That was a deliberate echo of the mass protest movement in the United States, where demonstrations have denounced the president’s actions under a self-stated goal of fighting dictatorship.
Siobhán O’Donoghue, the executive director of Uplift, the campaign group behind the display, said that when the eyes of the world were on Ireland, the group felt it was important to counter Mr. Trump’s claims of broad support. During his meeting with Mr. Martin in March, he had declared, “I think the Irish love Trump.”
“We just can’t capitulate to that narrative that people in Ireland somehow or another are backing Trump,” she said, adding that there would of course be some outliers who agree with his politics. “All it takes is for good people to stay silent for an incorrect view to be drawn.”
In Doonbeg, security was already high around the resort early this week, with roads blocked off and the entrance closed to the public days before the tournament began. The Irish Open, a stop on professional golf’s European tour, includes stars like Rory McIlroy and has brought tens of thousands of spectators to the area. A major police operation will be underway through the weekend.
For many local business owners, the economic benefit of hosting the tournament has captured their enthusiasm, outweighing admiration or disapproval of the Trump family.
At Tubridy’s Bar & Restaurant on Doonbeg’s Main Street, new lights were being installed and tents put up for an outside bar to host the expected influx of visitors. (The pub is no stranger to the Trump family — Donald and Eric Trump were photographed pulling pints there in 2019.)
The Trump Organization’s purchase of the luxury hotel and golf course has benefited Doonbeg, locals say, though most see the Trump family as simply the current stewards of a golf legacy that existed before their arrival.
Scottish soldiers stationed in the area first spotted the potential for a golf course in the sand dunes here in the 1890s. But it would be a century before the site was developed, after a community-led initiative in the early 1990s brought developers who began construction in 1999.
The Trump Organization bought the hotel and golf course out of receivership in 2014 for an estimated €15 million (around $17 million.) Around 300 people are employed here in peak season.
On Tuesday, some visitors were wandering into the village, including some who were vocal in their support of Mr. Trump.
“I think he’s a good man,” said Sean Larkin, 70, as he sat outside a shop on Doonbeg’s main street. “He’s a big golfer. He seems to enjoy life and he just says what he thinks.”
His daughter Michelle Larkin, 36, was less convinced and looked at her father with a mix of bemusement and skepticism. “I try to stay away from politics and live in my own happy bubble,” she said.
For the last decade, the pair have made it an annual tradition to attend the Irish Open and had traveled from their home in the town of Tullamore, about two hours away, to take part.
“What’s sad about it is, I do know people who come to the Irish Open, but they are not coming this year because Trump owns the course,” Mr. Larkin said of some fellow golf enthusiasts.
“Well, they probably don’t want to seem like they are supporting him,” his daughter replied.
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