St. Patrick's Day came to DC early this year, as the prime minister (or taoiseach) of Ireland, Enda Kenny, paid a visit to the United States.
During a lunch on Capitol Hill to commemorate the holiday, President Donald Trump read aloud what he said was a favorite Irish proverb of his.
On the eve of St. Patrick's Day, Trump shares an Irish proverb:
"As we stand together with our Irish friends, I am reminded of that proverb, and this is a good one, this one I like — I've heard it for many, many years and I love it," Trump said to preface the following: "Always remember to forget the friends who've proved untrue, but never forget to remember those who've stuck by you."
But very quickly people began to realize something was...off.
With all due respect to the president's reputation for scrupulously checking his sources, I don't think this is an… https://t.co/OfMquUyKra
"Irish Proverb" me hole. https://t.co/dWLregquCs
Some deft googling led Twitter user @colz to conclude that the lines actually came from a poem posted online called "Remember to Forget."
OK I've found trump's 'irish' proverb.
That poem was written by this guy, Albashir Adam Alhassan, a manager at a bank in Nigeria, over 10 years ago, he says.
But not everyone is sure that Alhassan wrote the entirety of the poem that has been fingered as the origin of Trump's words.
That poem may have been plagiarized. It is not an original poem. Put it through a plagiarism checker and you see ot… https://t.co/Cf4PoTzSQo
Alhassan denies any plagiarism, however. "I wrote all my poems without anyone's help," he told BuzzFeed News. "I'm surprised how the plagiarism detector works. But I wrote that poem when I had no access to the internet on my phone in Nigeria. I have sent for the scrapbook to be brought out in my childhood home. That's where I wrote all my poems before ever knowing I can someday post them on the internet."
The plot thickens, though: A version of the second stanza of the poem, the part that Trump quoted, appears on a list of "Irish proverbs" on at least one website.
The White House has so far not responded to a BuzzFeed News request for comment on just how the president came across the lines he read out on Thursday.
CORRECTION
The authenticity of the Irish proverb President Trump quoted is under debate. A previous version of this article definitively said that it was written by Albashir Adam Alhassan.