Ireland’s prime minister is set to visit the White House for President Trump’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration, White House press secretary Sean Spicer confirmed Wednesday.
The country’s taoiseach, Enda Kenny, and Irish-American members of Congress have faced calls to boycott the annual event over Trump’s hardline stance on immigration.
A petition in Ireland urging Kenny to skip an annual tradition, in which the Irish prime minister gives a bowl on shamrocks to the U.S. president on St. Patrick’s Day, has garnered nearly 40,000 signatures.
{mosads}In the U.S., former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) circulated his own petition calling on Kenny to forego the celebration. It has received roughly 5,100 signatures.
“No shamrocks please for the immigrant-hating Mr. Trump. No tri-color flag pins for white supremacists with Irish surnames such as [White House Chief Strategist] Stephen Bannon,” the petition reads. “Let’s show Trump how many Irish Americans and fellow Americans oppose his policies. Make your Irish ancestors smile.”
Kenny told Ireland’s parliament last year, while Trump was still a presidential candidate, that he thought the real estate mogul’s rhetoric was “racist and dangerous.”
He is set to arrive in Washington on March 16.