What is behind the anti-Americanism on the Irish left?

At Dublin Airport beyond US immigration lies a piece of America and today the place is buzzing with tourists, students, business people and Irish-American families. With about 40 direct daily flights between Dublin and the United States, Ireland is the best connected country in Europe to America. Contrast that with Norway, a similarly small European country with three flights to the US a day.

We Irish and Americans have a deep connection. It is special bond, not so much one strategically fostered by diplomats as a friendship made at kitchen tables and singsongs at cousins’ weddings. The Irish are part of the great American story. This fondness is not exclusive to the 33-odd million Irish-Americans. That warm, fuzzy feeling is Irish ‘soft power’, bolstered by frequent contact between ordinary people. Every year about 10 per cent of the total population or 500,000 Irish people visit the States, while 1.5 million American tourists visit Ireland. Irish art – from movies to theatre, literature and music – flourishes in the US.

It’s not just culture – the peace process in Northern Ireland wouldn’t have happened without American involvement. And of course there is the commerce. The Irish economy is like Connecticut’s with desperate weather. Our economies are intertwined. American investment in Ireland is €1.3 trillion or 255 per cent of total GDP (CSO). The US accounts for about €897 billion (69 per cent) of all foreign investment and the 25 biggest US firms are roughly 65 per cent of all inward foreign direct investment. Without American know-how and capital, Ireland would be Bulgaria in the rain.

American firms employ about 300,000 people, about 11 per cent of Ireland’s workforce, mainly in tech (ICT/pharma) and high-value manufacturing. American multinationals alone pay €40 billion per year in wages and account for roughly 72 per cent of Ireland’s exports or €383 billion. Ireland runs a trade surplus of about €50.1 billion with the US, much to Donald Trump’s distaste. A large chunk of our schools and hospitals are funded by American corporate tax receipts, which hit €28 billion in 2024 or 26 per cent of total tax revenue. Three-quarters of this is paid by large US multinationals, while three US firms alone pay 40 per cent of all corporate tax in Ireland.

Given these extraordinary ties, America is obviously Ireland’s best friend, so where does the anti-Americanism of the Irish left come from? What have the Americans done to us? Suspicion of Britain is historically understandable, but the Yanks?

President Catherine Connolly’s election can be seen as a continuation of what could be termed the ‘Presidential Left’ - a low-stakes leftism movement that comes together to win presidential elections and is now incumbent in the Áras. It sees itself on the right side of history and justice. Morally superior, the Presidential Left - as close to political royalty as we have in a republic - aligns to a strict creed, a central tenet of which is anti-Americanism. By all means criticise America, particularly on Gaza, but why make it a blanket article of faith? Such a rigid catechism is at odds with the reality of the Irish-American relationship. I could understand the small guy being anti-big power if that big power wronged us, but America is the country that gave us refuge yesterday and pays today for our public hospitals.

What explains this is an odd strain of Maoism (yes, there are actually people who lionise Chairman Mao) called Maoism-Third Worldism, where indigenous equals good and global equals bad. In these days of social media, it’s the Cultural Revolution for the TikTok age, but Maoism-Third Worldism gripped the left decades ago. It is a postcolonial morality play which aims to reshape all politics, local and international, as an oppressed peoples’ rebellion against western hegemony.

In Maoism-Third Worldism, there are only two sides – the powerful and powerless, the coloniser and colonised, the legitimate and illegitimate. Real-world notions of nuance and complexity are jettisoned for black-and-white fantasy. This thinking comes from the great de-colonialisation period from the 1950s onwards, where decolonisation was painted as a broader struggle against western capitalism. The strains in Irish republicanism are clear.

It’s attractive because it’s easy. We were a colony, so we have the stripes and, like a Hollywood blockbuster, the script races to a moral conclusion. In this Das Kapital meets Disneyworld, anti-colonial resistance turns into a well-signposted morality epic. Leaders such as Che, Fidel, Trotsky are heroes; opposers were oppressors, while those who fought on the “wrong” side – such as the Irish in the Somme – are airbrushed.

Economically, Maoism-Third Worldism cleaves towards pure self-sufficiency, rather than the tricky compromises that international trade involves. (We have tried self-sufficiency – just ask the two in three people born here who emigrated in the first 50 years of the State.) With justice on your side, all issues are seen through a binary lens, from your own personal struggles to world peace, climate change, Irish unity, neutrality and ultimately local political dilemmas.

Before you know it, everything is reduced to a morality match about the occupiers and the occupied so that landlords, builders and property developers are portrayed as settlers, and renters and tenants are the oppressed, inhabiting a higher moral plane of the downtrodden when in reality they are victims of very poor housing market policy.

The language of the revolutionary struggle frames pragmatic discussions about planning permission, the health system or the European Union’s internal market. Debates hinge not on what works well in practice but what sounds good in theory.

Occupying pole position in the Third Worldist list of villains is Ireland’s ally, the United States. Despite being founded by the first anti-colonial revolution, the US is the Great Satan. Until now, the Presidential Left theatrically burning the stars and stripes on Dawson Street and roaring “F*** the USA” through megaphones is all performance with no penalty. That could change. Might having a new Irish president steeped in the rhetoric of Maoism-Third Worldism risk American capital flight? I’m not sure; the Yanks like it here, they make huge profits and while they could be a bit put out by the casual insults, American tax money might pay for our hospitals for years to come. Who knows?

One thing is certain: the Irish-American bond, our enduring and rewarding friendship, is bigger than any politician. Built over centuries, fertilised by decades of family ties and soldered by the mutually advantageous adhesive of commerce, it is a connection that will be difficult to unravel, even for those who see themselves on the side of the angels.