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By Stephen Murphy, Ireland correspondent, at the White House

The Quiet Man is the Hollywood classic that brought Ireland to an American audience. 

It was also the strategy we all thought Micheal Martin would adopt for today’s Oval Office meeting with a volatile US president – based on past performances, he would sit quietly and let Donald Trump riff at will. 

The US president was furious at his NATO allies and stuck the boot over and over again into Keir Starmer as a “very nice man” who failed to deliver. 

He told me that it was up to the British people to decide if a change is necessary, and he derided Starmer – he’s no Winston Churchill, he declared. 

Then the unexpected happened. The Irish prime minister, who finally found his voice, pushed back. 

Watch: Martin ‘stepped up to the plate’ in Starmer’s defence

Starmer was an “earnest, sound person” who had “reset” the Anglo-Irish relationship, the taoiseach told his host. Someone who Trump had “the capacity to get on with”. 

The president listened. 

We were in Cork last week at the British-Irish summit where, once again, the warm and congenial relationship between Martin and Starmer was evident, with walks in a lush garden incongruously soundtracked by monkeys hollering from a nearby wildlife park. 

Little did the British prime minister think that his Irish interlocutor would go to bat for him in the Oval Office bearpit a week later. 

Martin can be fairly criticised on several political fronts, but most agree he is a fundamentally decent person. 

The son of a boxer, he didn’t like seeing someone he knows being pummelled while down on the canvas – and he found his voice. Not just on Starmer either. 

The taoiseach also pushed back politely but strongly on the MAGA perception of Europe – Ireland included – as being taken over by waves of immigrants.  

Europe, he said, is “still a very good place to live”. Donald Trump took it squarely on the chin – the taoiseach was allowed to make his points, and was still hailed as a guy “we like”. 

It was 40 minutes that the British PM will not want to watch back – but at the very least it illustrates the strides he has made in repairing relations with Britain’s closest neighbour… even as it underlines the work needed to restore the Special Relationship.