13 September 2026
2013
R. Linda:
Yesterday, I watched the news with Mam. She suddenly hushed me and turned the sound up.
"Wot?" I asked her.
"IRELAND, he's talking about IRELAND, uniting the country!"
Okay then, I thought. Obviously she caught something I didn't. I wasn't paying attention because when Trump came on screen, I thought he was talking about his golf course. I knew he was in Dublin but wasn't interested, because I am no golfer meself.
She ran the clip back.
"Listen ta dis!" She instructed me.
Trump was being Trump. Out of the blue- oh, make that out of the green- he decided he could fix a problem the people of Ireland wrestled with for centuries. Unification of the entire island. He thinks it can be sorted out because, in his words, unification would be "very cool" and "how can it be bad?"
She paused the telly and looked at me, repeating, "How can it be bad?"
I shrugged and signalled her to unpause so we could hear the rest of the plan.
He was saying in so many words that Ireland should be one whole country, not the North a part of the U.K.
"Would someone speak up!" Mam shouted at the telly. "Tell that man about the Good Friday Agreement. Tell him what Unionists are, what a Nationalist is, explain the many referendums, consents, Stormont and a hundred years of Irish history!"
She looked at me.
"Huh? You aren't suggesting? Oh, Mam, I be not there; I be here, and I wouldn't get into the same room with the misinformed man, now would I? How would I explain to a man who thinks he is remarkably good at fixing boundaries, for heaven's sake- he'd rename Ireland- I'd be sure, say something like…like…Lesser America?"
"More the reason." She huffed.
All day she was on this, like I could do something about it. I kept telling her that, by the looks on the Irish faces surrounding Trump, they weren't hot on the idea. So was it any wonder that when I went up to bed last night I dreamt about being in a room with Trump, trying to explain the Good Friday Agreement?
That night, in me dream, he listened to me for like ten nanoseconds and said, "Right. So what you're saying is, nobody thought of just joining the two pieces? Okay, here's the problem." Trump produced a thick-tipped Sharpie and drew a thick black line through Northern Ireland. "This line. Terrible line. Maybe the worst line anybody ever drew."
Micheál Martin said from behind me, "That's the border."
"Exactly, we get rid ot it."
"You can't just erase a border."
Trump rubbed it out with his sleeve.
"Just did."
I was speechless; did he not understand a word? Obviously not. He took the Sharpie and went over to a map of Ireland, circled the whole of it, and wrote IRELAND across it.
"There. Unified. It's a beautiful thing. Ireland, unified."
I sighed. "Sir, Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. Your friend, King Charles…he wouldn't like that, I don't think."
He looked back at the map. "Which part?" he asked.
"The top bit, right there where it says Ulster." I pointed.
He scoffed, "THAT tiny bit?"
"Yes."
"And Britain wants it?"
"They do."
"Why? There's not much there."
I knew no explanation for the last several centuries would sink in as to why Britain wanted to hold onto Northern Ireland.
"Well," he said, "Give Britain compensation." He had the Sharpie out and was trading territory like properties in Monopoly.
"Okay, so Britain gives Northern Ireland. Ireland gives Britain something in return. What have you got?" He turned to me.
"Sir, countries don't generally work that way."
"They absolutely do. I've done deals."
I turned around to spy Micheál Martin still sitting in the room, desperately trying to prevent himself from becoming the owner of Wales. Somehow he knew what was coming.
Trump grunted, picked up his Sharpie, and circled Scotland. He turned and said smugly to me, "These guys want out too."
"Not all, some." Martin offered.
"And Wales?"
"Well—" Martin squirmed.
"Jesus. What exactly is England doing over there?" Trump asked, but didn't really want to know.
Martin and I watched as Trump methodically dismantled the United Kingdom with his Sharpie. We both sat there blinking uncontrollably at each slash of the Sharpie.
"Northern Ireland goes to Ireland." He turned around with a thought, "When Scotland hears about this, they will want out too and Wales? Agh, they'll want a piece of it too."
Martin sighed and whispered to me, "I can just imagine King Charles demanding to know WHO authorised any of that…that raiméis!"
Trump looked at Martin. "You want Wales?"
"Why the hell would I want Wales?"
"Beautiful country, tremendous sheep.
"We have a beautiful country and sheep here."
"Even better. We'll call it New Wales."
"There is already a New Wales," Martin corrected, "it's on the east coast of Australia."
"New Ireland, then," his marker printed over the map of Wales.
This kept escalating because he'd found the many islands that surround the U.K. Martin yelled at him, "Stop giving away countries! You can't just do that."
I bolted upright in bed, sweating. What was I dreaming?
I woke Tonya, not meaning to, by me squirming.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I just dreamed Trump unified Ireland with a Sharpie pen."
She stared at me; I could see her eyes glowing in the darkness, like a cat.
"And?" She meowed.
"He gave Ireland Wales."
She rolled over. "Go back to sleep, Gabe."
"I don't want to. I think Scotland's next."
After a while, I drifted back to sleep, but not where I wanted to go.
I found meself suddenly in the same room without Trump, just Martin. The telly was on, the reports were coming in that the NI Unionists who had cultivated relations with Trump were denouncing his Unified Ireland. In a twist, the Nationalists who couldn't stand Trump's policies have discovered, very briefly, that maybe he isn't such an awful fellow after all. SDLP politician Colum Eastwood was jokingly posting, "I always liked him," while Claire Hanna cracked that Trump was "not as orange as he looks!"
Martin pointed out the window, and there was a horde of jubilant people wearing T-shirts that said: TRUMP: MAKE ULSTER GREAT AGAIN.
"Oh, dear." Martin groaned.
The telly interrupted our window-watching. We turned around from the shouting of, "I've waited me whole life for a united Ireland!" and "Jayus, Mary an' Joseph, put the border back?"
I looked down at the headlines in the newspaper and pointed: TRUMP: 32 COUNTIES, ONE GREAT DEAL.
Then I looked at Martin and said, "Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh dear." How in hell did I get involved in this? I don't even know all the counties in New Hampshire!
"You know what this will start, don't you?" He said to me, "He'll return to Washington very pleased with himself, and he'll announce he has SOLVED Ireland's unification problem, AND that he's available to settle other difficult territorial disputes."
I nodded. Yes, I could see that. "Someone needs to hide all the globes."
"Too late, he's already seen Canada. He said, just before this idea popped into his head, and we were discussing tariffs, that he's made America Great again. When suddenly he looked at the globe on the table, pointing out the U.S., he turned to me and said, 'Wait a minute. Why is that whole thing up there a different country?'"
I commiserated with Martin by mumbling, "Here we have an outsider wandering into one of history's most complicated political questions on earth and treating it like he's rearranging tables at a wedding."
"And 'How can it be bad?'" Martin threw up his hands in frustration. "800 years of Anglo-Irish history and he concludes the problem is that nobody before him had a Sharpie that could make good deals on a map."
We stopped talking; there was a knock on the door, and Trump popped his head around. "I'm baccck! I realised you guys have another problem."
"What might that be?" We both asked in horrified unison.
"Prince Harry." He looked at the map. "Where's Harry?"
"California, or he was. England now, I believe." I said, looking to Martin, who was nodding in agreement.
Trump stared at me for a minute. "Why in California?"
Martin and I both shrugged.
Suddenly, we were all aware that Harry and Meghan were sitting at the table where the globe was. Nobody remembers inviting them!
Meghan had a folder labelled OUR TRUTH. Harry looked confused. And I am thinking, well, thank the powers that be, finally somebody at this table who knows less about why he's here than I do.
Trump declares Harry is the obvious solution to the monarchy problem.
"You're a prince."
"Well…yes."
"Great. You can have Scotland."
"I don't think Scotland wants me."
"Everybody wants Scotland. Beautiful golf courses."
Meghan leaned over and whispered something to Harry.
Harry said, "Meghan thinks we should have Canada."
She pulled on his sleeve; he leaned in towards her as she whispered again.
"And Australia. You know, two for her, one for me."
The bloody greed of these two, especially the missus!
Trump shook his shaggy head. "No can do. Canada belongs to America! Now Greenland, there's a country for you, well, not you. Greenland. American, so don't even think it."
I sat there wondering why everybody was getting countries, when that thought was broken to smithereens by Trump saying, "Since Harry left Britain, he clearly understands secession. So, Harry should become the official adviser on breaking up the United Kingdom."
I whispered to Martin that Harry AND Meghan were doing a bang-up job of that on their own.
But Harry tried to explain that leaving the Royal Family wasn't quite the same as Irish reunification. But Trump waved him off.
"You left England. Ireland wants to leave England. Same thing."
"Actually, Northern Ireland—"
"Harry, I KNOW borders. I'm the Border King."
Just when I thought this couldn't get any more bizarre, King Charles walks in carrying a cup of tea.
"What precisely is going on?" He regally inquired.
Trump proudly pointed at the map. "I fixed your country."
Charles put his teacup down and, with his hands behind his back, perused the map…for a very long time, seemingly discovering his losses one at a time. He coughed into his hand and half-turned toward Trump. "Northern Ireland is gone." He paused and turned again. "Scotland appears to be gone." A longer pause this time. "And Wales?"
"Martin's got that."
"I don't want it."
"Harry gets Scotland and Meg here, maybe Iceland, and they share Australia on weekends in case you missed that," Trump said, much like a Realtor explaining what properties sold.
Charles stared at the map. I could feel he was silently seething.
"Where is England, landed?"
Trump pointed. "That's yours."
"How very generous of you." Charles turned toward him, looking less than happy.
Another voice said, "Gabriel Alloysius O'Sullivan, wake the hell up!" And I realise that's me own voice.
I heard meself say out loud, "But wot do I get? You didn't give ME a country yet! Even an island, I'll take the Shetland Islands or the Isle of Man maybe…"
"What is going on?" Tonya said, disturbed that I woke her again.
"I dreamt Trump united Ireland, untied Britain, Harry got Scotland, I think, Meghan got Iceland, and Martin got Wales, that he didn't want, and I got nothing!"
Silence.
"Why'd you get nothing? What did you do?"
"That's what I kept fecking asking meself!"
She found me funny!
Gabe
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