Joe Biden and Simon Harris.
President Joe Biden has cancelled a planned event with the Taoiseach for tomorrow.
Simon Harris flies today to Washington DC to meet the president in his last month in office.
But a category 4 Hurricane is due to make landfall in Florida tomorrow — and a ceremony in the Rose Garden has now been cancelled.
The decision was taken overnight, because of the possible optics of the President celebrating historic links with Ireland when devastating damage is being unleashed in Florida.
A spokesman for Simon Harris said: “President Biden and Taoiseach Simon Harris spoke last night.
“The President asked that they would proceed as planned at the Oval Office on Wednesday, but given the grave threat posed in the United States by Hurricane Milton, they would postpone the reception in the Rose Garden until a later date.
“The Taoiseach will proceed with all other parts of his programme in Washington.”
Mr Harris has other engagements, which are currently embargoed for security reasons, but the Rose Garden ceremony was to publicly celebrate 100 years of Irish-US diplomatic relations.
It was expected to feature cultural acts, such as an Irish singer and Irish dancers.
But his aides feared a disastrous contrast with the possible effects of Hurricane Milton, and 300 invitations to the event were cancelled overnight.
Simon Harris thus joins two other Taoisigh who have been hit by the Curse of the White House in recent years.
Leo Varadkar in 2020 had to tell the nation from Blair House, across the road from the White House, that Ireland was going into lockdown from Covid,
Because of the pandemic, the next year’s shamrock ceremony was scrapped, and new Taoiseach Micheál Martin had to talk to President Biden by video link.
And in 2022, Mr Martin contracted Covid when in Washington, and his Oval Office encounter with the most powerful man in the world was abruptly cancelled.
