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"It's impossible not to like Justin Rose. It's the English Rose against the Irish shamrock," said one golfer, as everyone chatted nervously before the play-off.

Catherine, dressed in a bottle-green and percher hat, presented the traditional sprigs of shamrock to officers, guardsmen and mascot Seamus, the Irish wolfhound, at the regiment's annual parade at Wellington Barracks.

But such information would only have puzzled Trump and complicated the shamrock bonhomie, and Vance — a Roman Catholic convert, after all — beamed in silence from the sofa.

On Wednesday, the taoiseach presented Trump with a bowl of shamrocks in the White House.

JD Vance, who attended the same meeting, didn't miss his own chance to pay homage to the Irish prime minister, donning a pair of cream-coloured socks that were - fittingly - adorned with green shamrocks.