Enormous and crude balloons cast a dark shadow over President Donald Trump's visit to Ireland on Saturday.
Trump landed in Ireland on Saturday to visit the International Golf Links & Hotel, Doonbeg and meet with Irish leaders. According to reports, his arrival was met with demonstrations and outcry at both Doonbeg and central Dublin.
Posts on X showed throngs of protesters holding up balloons depicting Trump engaging in sexual intercourse with Jeffrey Epstein and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to a Saturday article by The Independent, journalist and author Justine McCarthy said, "We don't want him here," as she went to protests in Doonbeg.
"The reasons I'm protesting are first of all as a woman, because he's a sex offender," McCarthy said. "Secondly, because of Palestine, America's collusion in the onslaught on Gaza...and because of America's unprovoked war on Iran...Also the third reason is climate change because he called climate change a hoax and he is damaging our planet."
The Independent noted Trump was found liable for sexual abuse by a jury in 2023, but he's not registered as a sex offender. McCarthy added, "The rest of the world will know that we don't want him here," through the protests.
Ailbhe Smyth, an Irish academic and feminist, told The Independent that she felt an "ethical and moral responsibility" to "stand up and say, 'No, we do not support you.'" Protesters would want "for the historical moment to be one of the people who stood up to this terrible man," Smyth added.
"One of the interesting things is that it does bring really political parties from the center right over to right across the left together," Smyth told The Independent. "They don't necessarily get out and all march together, but there is a general consensus...here in Ireland that is solidly 100% anti-Trump."
According to reporting by The New York Times, a "No Kings" mural appeared in Dublin on Thursday. Siobhán O’Donoghue, the executive director of Uplift, the campaign group behind the display, told The Times it had to let the world know it opposes Trump.
“We just can’t capitulate to that narrative that people in Ireland somehow or another are backing Trump,” she said. “All it takes is for good people to stay silent for an incorrect view to be drawn.”
Another Ireland resident scrawled an enormous "F--- Trump" on her land under his flight path.