The annual meeting between the top Irish leader and the American President focused on the European Union and related trade and immigration policies, Irish immigrants currently living and working in the U.S. and friendship between the two nations.
The Associated Press previously reported that Enda Kenny said: “European leaders need to be over here talking to Republicans, Democrats and the administration about what membership of the European Union means and the relationship that it can have with as powerful an entity as the United States.”
USA Today reported that in today’s meeting, Kenny stressed that the EU and Ireland are prepared to work with the Trump administration on trade and immigration issues in current agreements.
Kenny’s spokesman Feargal Purcell previously said Kenny would speak with Trump about the estimated 50,000 Irish immigrants living here.
When Kenny left the private meeting in the Oval Office, he “advised undocumented Irish workers in the U.S. to clear up any ‘minor indiscretions’ they may have committed, like unpaid parking tickets or traffic fines,” USA Today reported.
At the annual Friends of Ireland Luncheon following the meeting, comments from Trump focused on America’s friendship and ties with Ireland.
Irish Immigrants Once Targets of Immigration Riots
In 1855, in an event known as Bloody Monday, election day riots led by the Know Nothing Party in Louisville, Ky., left upwards of two dozen Irish and German Catholic immigrants dead.
The memorial was placed between 10th and 11th Streets on West Main Street in Louisville, where a row of frame houses owned by Patrick Quinn were barricaded and burned and people shot as they tried to escape.
The Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) and German-American Club raised the funds for the memorial marker for the event’s 150th anniversary on August 5, 2006.
The AOH told Gov1 that on St. Patrick’s Day 2017, they will again visit the marker:
We are indeed going to have a remembrance on St Patrick’s Day. This year it will start at 16:00 to try and get more people out from work. Weather could be a factor in size of the group, but the importance of the event will be sure to keep it on,” a representative wrote via email.
Read the original story on USA Today’s website.
Editor’s Update March 17th: The Irish leader addressed why Irish immigrants came to America from the private luncheon. This clip was posted on Media Company Channel 4 News Facebook on St. Patrick’s Day 2017:
