The people around Mr. Trump surely know this history, yet they act as if they were the descendants not of these poor immigrants
but of the American nativists and Know Nothings who slandered and derided them.
The Irish are at least as fond as anyone else of being told how great they are, but as an Irish person, I find this more than a little disconcerting.
St. Patrick’s Day is always in danger of being drowned in beer and sentimentality,
but President Trump and his inner circle of Irish-Americans have given it the possibility of renewed gravity and seriousness.