A sister of Ireland's President Catherine Connolly was filmed by CNN telling Donald Trump to "flatten your bloody White House" during a Dublin protest against his visit, held on the same day the president met Trump at Áras an Uachtaráin. Dr Margaret Connolly, a Sligo-based GP and pro-Palestinian activist previously detained by Israel while trying to reach Gaza on an aid flotilla, made the remarks while protesting Trump and US involvement in the Gaza conflict. The comments risk overshadowing what the Irish government had otherwise hailed as a successful visit, during which Trump pledged to help get aid into Gaza and said he would lift tariffs on Irish whiskey.

President Connolly held a 20-minute meeting with Trump on Saturday, described by sources as free of "fireworks", after which she said she had conveyed the Irish public's view that "the normalisation of war and genocide can never be accepted". Trump's wider Irish trip included a bilateral meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin at Farmleigh House and a visit to his Doonbeg golf course, and drew protests in Dublin, Shannon and Doonbeg. The CNN clip of Dr Connolly did not identify her as the president's sister, and she declined to comment when contacted by the Mail, while the White House omitted footage of the Áras meeting from its own video of the trip.