President Donald Trump and President Michael D. Higgins do have a few things in common, despite outwardly very different images and appearances.
They are both presidents though that's where they veer apart. Higgins is a constitutional head of state, Trump an executive one.
Trump, in theory, could blow up the planet. Higgins can only talk to it, though there are times when he sounds capable of talking the entire world into seeming submission.
Both men use sticks. Higgins needs a couple of walking sticks to get around these days. Trump swings the golf variety and was doing such over the weekend at his golf courses in Scotland. He was doing so as the people of Gaza, according to a torrent of media accounts, starved.
But by the weekend's conclusion Trump seemed to arrive on Michael D's page. So to speak.
A few days before Trump's Scottish sojourn Higgins issued a statement as the situation in Gaza made new and even grimmer headlines around the world by way of harrowing photos of mothers with starving children in their arms.
The statement by Higgins was a short one by his normally loquacious standards. The President of Ireland stated: “Across the television screens of Europe and the world we are seeing images of death that was preventable.
"This weekend from Gaza we have seen images of several mothers grieving alongside the bodies of their babies who have died of malnourishment.
"We have seen an image of a mother being prevented from seeing the body of her 9 year old son and his 10 year old sister killed at the top of the queue as they queued for water.
"We have had an announcement that more than 80,000 people have been given notice to vacate their homes in central Gaza and head south to what is described as a ‘non-operational area’ but where killings, including that of a tent family, have taken place.
"It is clear that this latest development in forced displacement is aimed at such destruction of infrastructure as will constitute there being nothing to return to on the part of those displaced.
"It is now time for us to hear from an independent body or the European Union itself as to how the recently negotiated access of aid to those dying of starvation and dehydration, including the tiny infants and breastfeeding mothers who are going to die due to dehydration, is being provided.
"In his weekend statement on these issues, Pope Leo XIV has used his strongest language to condemn this assault on civilian life and has asked the international community to respond with the urgency these issues demand.
"As the directly-elected Head of State of a Member of the European Union, I repeat my many appeals to those who have not broken silence on these issues to join with Ireland and others in seeking an immediate delivery of aid and a strengthening of diplomatic measures to achieve this, and emergency action by the United Nations to end this preventable loss of life.”
It's unlikely that President Trump heard these words. They would, figuratively and otherwise, have been lost in the wind on the Scottish coast.
But the American president was, on his own accord, seeing and hearing things about Gaza.
By Monday, still in Scotland, he was stating in part: "based on television....those children look very hungry. That's real starvation stuff. There is real starvation in Gaza....you can't fake that."
So the two presidents, you could say, were now singing off the same hymn sheet.
President Trump's words, not quite soaring to the heights attained by President Higgins, have the power to do something about this tragic situation and quickly. He is, after all, the leader of the free world.
President Higgins does not hold such power, and does not enjoy such an exalted title.
But for a few moments last week the Irish president was the voice of the free world.
And not for the first time.
