Richard Chambers is returning to our TV with his new documentary, Make Ireland Great Again.
The documentary sees Richard meet key allies of U.S. President Donald Trump, who set out a growing list of grievances and expectations for the Irish Government.Â
“We shot when we were over in Washington and Philadelphia with the Taoiseach for the St. Patrick’s Day visit,” Richard tells VIP Magazine.
“It’s something I’ve been interested in for a long time, particularly since Donald Trump became the president again, the growing list of areas where there’s tension or conflict between our government and the US government. And how the value system of the Trump administration is now increasingly at odds with ours in Ireland.”
He tells us that he concept of what an Irish American is has been “changing”.
“When we talk about Irish American politicians now in the States, the majority of them are on Donald Trump’s side of the fence. They are of the Republican persuasion.”
He goes on to say that he speaks to “some very, very interesting voices” which we were “hearing for the very first time in Ireland”.
“I think a lot of the time when we see discussions of US politics and Irish US relations, we hear Irish voices or we hear commentators in the US.
“Some of these are for the first time, some very, very senior figures in Capitol Hill and in US foreign policy, with very, very in-depth discussions on Ireland and how the great economic benefit we’ve derived from America over the years, that is not a guaranteed thing.”
Richard explains he was inspired to make the documentary when he was a Kamala Harris election night watch party surrounded by Kamala supporters as they realised that Trump had won the election once again.
“Trump had talked so much about tariffs, that threat seemed to dissipate for a while after he announced his trade deal. But there have been so many other questions, and we see conflict left and right from things like Gaza, the war in Iran, energy prices relating to that, the influence of US tech companies and social media platforms here. There’s such a broad range of connections and something I’ve always been very, very interested in,” he shares about what subjects he wanted to touch on in the documentary.
“Even reporting I did earlier on this year on X and Grok, that all feeds into it as well. And I just don’t think that we had seen enough of an examination of beyond the personalities of Micheál Martin and Donald Trump. We hadn’t really seen an examination of, hey, what does this mean for us going forward as a society?”
Of course, the topic of Trump is a controversial one. So did that lead to any issues?
“I think the people who agreed to talk to us were all in, and they were delighted to share their views on Ireland. I’ve shot a couple of documentaries now in the States for Virgin Media News, and they’ve been great. This time was a lot harder to get people to actually sign up and do it. Some of that’s due to the war in Iran has just begun.
“We had some very intense conversations, particularly around John Bolton, who was Donald Trump’s national security advisor. He also worked for the Bush administration as well. A little bit of a back and forth in there, particularly around Gaza, which I think viewers will find very, very interesting, very, very enlightening.”
It’s clear throughout our conversation that Richard didn’t agree with a lot of the politicians that he encountered during this documentary. So how did he keep his cool while they spoke so callously about serious topics going around the world?
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“I think it’s really hard, but I think there’s a balance to be struck. Whatever emotions and whatever feelings you have inside about whatever is ridiculous that you’re hearing, you are there to be a professional, and you are there to be your viewer’s person in the room. And I know my viewers will be also there screaming, saying, ‘what is your man saying? Who can you believe what your one is saying here?’,” he explains.
“My job is to try and tease these things out and not just throw my hands up there and just be like, ‘Nah, I’m not having this. You’re absolutely talking complete rot here.’
“I think it’s just really interesting to try to understand the reasons why people have their viewpoint. Like, say, some people’s viewpoints on Gaza, it’s important that we all try to understand it because we can put ourselves into echo chambers where we only hear one particular viewpoint or we only hear one person’s way of thinking. So, trying to get to the bottom of why people think a certain way, I think, is really, really important, particularly in a very divided age that we are in.
“I think that’s always in the back of your mind. And I think as well, just when you’re in an interview, throwing your hands up and saying, ‘You are absolutely mad or what you’re saying is mad’, it stops the flow a bit as well. So just keep going with it. Keep teasing out questions.
“And that’s something I’d encourage younger journalists to do as well. You get more with honey than you do with vinegar. You’ve got to keep people on hook and keep the conversations going.”
With the state of the world as it is right now, it seems like more and more people are disengaging, but Richard tells us that he feels the complete opposite.
“I was more worried about news fatigue over the last couple of years than I am now. I think people are coming back around to it,” he says with a confident nod.
“All you have to do is look at audiences for the news on Virgin Media, which have been phenomenal, I must say. Traction on things like social media as well. There’s been a huge resurgence in interest in journalism.”
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He cites that he feels like people are “tired of muck and misinformation and disinformation”, adding that people want to “feel empowered”.
“People understand that, as awful as things can be around the world. And that’s actually the reason why I started to do this thing on Instagram, showing good news stories from around the world as well. I think you do need to keep people interested by showing them that there is good out there as well. So I think that’s one way of fighting the fatigue as well. I was more worried about fatigue, particularly in sort of the post-COVID years.
“But I think people have come back around to it. People are so interested in what happens in the States and Ireland. We are obsessed. It’s like this grand social soap opera that we’re all witness to on a nightly basis. But we are as well with our own politics and politics in the UK as well. And I think that’s really good.”
He adds that “young people in Ireland are so politically engaged” which is he says, is “to our benefit”.
“It’s just about going to the right sources. I think more and more people are turning towards journalists that they can trust, journalists who will ask hard questions, journalists who won’t shirk away from us. And yeah, I think that’s been quite rewarding.”
Richard filmed his documentary in March while he was over in the States for St Patrick’s Day, we joke that Trump is akin to a light switch – he makes calls and changes his mind daily.
It was “initially a concern” for Richard that the world stage would have changed in just two months because of this.
“I realised that the issues that we’re talking about in this are so pertinent. The issues are more pertinent now than they were then. The war in Iran is still going on. Gaza is still going on. The energy crisis and the prices that Irish households are having to pay as a result of the war in Iran, those have only grown in importance,” he shares.
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“Then you have the issues around the fuel protests, and you’ve seen people in the MAGA sphere, like Steve Bannon, people who were allies of Donald Trump, latching on to those protests. People in the MAGA movement in the United States who wanted to see an Irish Trump. Having the experience of what actually has happened since we recorded with people trying to latch on and exploit the fuel protests, it becomes even more timely.
“I was always confident that the issues that we talk about are going to be important in the here and now, but also in the future as well. And that’s why I think this documentary is actually really, really strong,” he shares.
“It’s not just about this one moment in time, the issues we talk about it in terms of, are we ever, are we always going to be able to rely on the US? Can we ever actually truly trust them again, when it feels like oftentimes, politically, one-way traffic or there’s pressure being exerted? Those are only going to grow and grow in importance over time too.”
Make Ireland Great Again, presented by Richard Chambers, will air on Virgin Media One on Wednesday 20th
