I went to Donald Trump's ancestral homeland. Here's what Iearned

The National

11-05-2025

I had in fact thought I was going the wrong way when I was at the airport, considering the isolated staircase route passing the fire exit.
Without realising, I had in that moment arrived in Lewis. The doorway to an island, and most rural parts of Scotland, is not necessarily when you take the first steps on to the land – it is when you step into a local's shoes. As soon as I entered that basement gate, I heard Gaelic and a familiarity between locals.
One man came in to greet others with a 'ciamar a tha thu', my basic Gaelic understanding serving me, as another woman followed to join the conversation about their travels and the recent football games.
On the 50-minute flight, the air hostess talked to several people she knew about where they had been, with ooo's and aaa's about their travels on the mainland.
I didn't necessarily feel like an outsider – my family is from a west coast island – but I did feel I was on the periphery, because I was there as an observer. I was to look in and gauge the feelings of islanders about local woman Mary Anne MacLeod's son, US president Donald Trump.
Going to Lewis was an attempt to understand Donald. His story starts with Mary Anne MacLeod, and her decision to leave for America. To understand Mary, we must understand Lewis.
As we took off, the man beside me read from his pocket Bible, and later we began chatting. He asked me what I did and when I said I was on a trip to hear what the island thought about the president, he gave me the reaction a lot of friends had already. A 'good luck with that' kind of look. He told me he had spent more time in Glasgow than the island in recent years, but his parents still lived in Lewis, and they despised Donald.
'But I'm quite supportive of him,' he laughed, and when I pried, he couldn't quite pin down why, but ultimately put it down to his directness.
Both the polarisation of opinions and admiration of Donald's direct tone were to be themes running through my visit, but so too was utter shame in the man.
I arrived at 8am on Easter Monday, so was mindful of the quietness that may face me when landing in one of the more religious areas of Scotland. Thankfully, one taxi was available outside the airport, and the driver Norman – last name MacLeod – also wished me luck for my trip.
The story of Mary Anne MacLeod
I had done my research into Mary Anne, whose story is relatively well-known, but I more than appreciated hearing it from an islander's point of view.
In his melodic Lewis accent, Norman laid out Mary Anne's journey.
Mary Anne was born in 1912 in the village of Tong, about three miles outside of Stornoway, where her father was a crofter, fisherman and ran the local post office. She was the youngest of 10, and the family's first language was Gaelic.
Under several landowners in the 19th century, Lewis locals lived through overcrowding. As the calls for land reform grew in the 1880s, Lewis established itself as a hub for activism.
The crucial Crofters Holdings Act of 1886 slightly sustained the crofting population but did not repair any damage done by the Clearances.
Island life was about survival as Mary Anne grew up. She watched her community deal with the grief of the Iolaire disaster which struck the island in 1919. More than 200 people lost their lives when their ship was wrecked in a storm on New Year's Day – just as they arrived at the mouth of Stornoway harbour coming home from war. Lewis lost more men per capita during World War One than anywhere else in the UK.
With few men on the island, and even fewer opportunities for work, Mary Anne's generation, and the one before her and the one after, left the island in droves. When Mary Anne left in 1930, it was the beginning of a quarter of Scotland's population leaving over the next 20 years.
Norman described the ships leaving and the tears shed as those who waved goodbye faced their loves ones for potentially the last time. Those going took a brave step into the unknown, because quite frankly, home was just that dark.
Mary Anne was one of seven sisters, and all but one emigrated. Annie MacLeod stayed, and raised her children in the family home in Tong.
Her journey to America
With a reported $50 in her purse, Mary Anne would go on to work as a domestic servant – which was extremely common for ladies who left the isles. American families lived the dream with the English butler and the Scottish maid, creating the stereotype we know today.
She married Fred Trump in 1936 after meeting him at a party with her older sister Catherine.
Different iterations and spins have been put on this story in the past almost 100 years, including Donald and his family conveniently leaving out his mother's profession from this time, or the fact she originally emigrated, and didn't just go on holiday to the States.
Apart from marrying a very wealthy man, Mary Anne's story is quite similar to a lot of island folk who left.
As Norman painted this picture, we drove through the streets towards Stornoway.
He spoke of the recent tariffs imposed by Donald, and his potential impending visit to Scotland, while specifically mentioning the 97 seconds Donald spent at his mother's house in Tong when he visited in 2008, as well as his visit as a child (pictured above).
'You see his cousin around town,' he told me. 'And you see him a bit, in his face I mean,' he said, referring to Donald.
Donald still has several first cousins in Lewis, with one living in the house his mother grew up in. I knew I would be knocking on their door the day after. I wasn't particularly looking forward to it, as I knew they had rejected reporters before.
Norman dropped me off at my accommodation close to the town centre, and I quickly left my bag and headed for some much-needed breakfast. As I enjoyed a coffee afterwards, my eyes caught those of Hillary Clinton.
Yes, Hillary Clinton, 2016 rival to Donald in the presidential race. Her book was sitting on a shelf in this café, and I couldn't help but smile at the sight of it.
News came in that Pope Francis had died, and I assisted the team in reporting the news, while considering where to go next. It was incredibly quiet as I expected, and so headed to someone I knew would be ready to talk.
Sarah Venus and her husband Peter own a shop called Lewis Revival, with the business right on the beachfront and opposite the marina.
The pair made headlines after they hung a 'Shame on Donald John' banner outside of the shop, in protest of the president after his infamous treatment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House Oval Office.
The couple – who have lived on the island since 2015 – knew I was coming, and so after some hellos, the three of us sat down to talk about their actions and continued campaign just a few miles from where Donald's mother had been born.
When Sarah, a former university lecturer in the US, spoke of former students and colleagues, her emotion was particularly clear.
READ MORE: 'You're disappointing us': A message for Donald Trump from the Outer Hebrides
Our interview was a window into the minds of the most afraid in our society – those who are truly terrified of their loved ones being apprehended by ICE agents and disappearing for weeks on end; of the potential storming of homes and visa revocations dependent on what you say and to whom; of free speech vanishing before their very eyes; of the plans being put in place by Donald and his inner circle so that his legacy does not end with him and his presidency.
They were mostly driven by fear, Sarah said, and an urgency to use their voices to educate the island and other Scots to the warning the country has of what is coming.
Later, at the local Tesco, I saw a Tesla in the car park. I don't know if they were locals or visitors.
Coming home
Mary Anne was well-loved in the island. She would periodically come home and they were 'local kind of people', Murdo from Ness told me.
He couldn't meet face-to-face in Stornoway on that Easter Monday as he was working on the mainland, commuting during the week, but was happy to talk on the phone as I sat with a coffee overlooking the water. Murdo and I had been connected by a mutual friend.
Mary Anne's daughter, Maryanne, visited the island and family living here regularly, he shared.
'They were very low-profile people from what I can gather, and there would be the signs of money like the car she would drive, but it was never an in-your-face, showy type thing," he explained.
'It was just the way they dressed and all that, but their behaviours were certainly modest anyway. Below the radar type thing. That profile endeared them to people. Donald Trump's sister's legacy, her reputation, is very well regarded in the islands, because of that.'
Murdo told me of the £150,000 Maryanne (below, left) donated to the island's Bethesda Hospice.
'It was one of her last acts of charity as it were, and that goes out of respect to her mother as well.
'Bethesda's one of these places back home, the hospice in Stornoway, where so many families have seen their loved ones spend their final days and, I think anybody who does stuff with Bethesda, it's like it commands a kind of affection and a respect from the get-go. It just showed how tuned in she was to the community that she went for something like that.'
Mary Anne herself would also give back to the island, with one donation given to build a community hall in Tong.
Murdo said there is no rapport or sentiment towards Donald like there was for his mother and sister.
He hypothesised whether Donald's foray into gambling had caused a connection to the island to close in behind him, citing rumours he had heard in the 80s and the 90s. Lewis Castle had been becoming derelict, and islanders were seeking someone with connections to the place to invest.
He remembers at the time people had mentioned Donald as a candidate, but there was pushback from folk citing that his gambling investments were too distant from island values to ever consider attaching themselves to him.
Despite this, Donald is to build an 18-hole MacLeod Course in Menie – 290 miles away from the families roots.
READ MORE: Islanders on taking pride in Donald Trump's Scottish roots
So, I asked, being both physically and spiritually distant from island life and Gaeltacht values, does Donald exploit his heritage?
'I think he probably does,' Murdo said, adding: 'There will be a sentiment there for the sake of the love of his mother that he does have that connection to Scotland, but I think that's about as deep as it goes. I think it's mostly a love of his mother rather than a love of Scotland in itself.'
A subtle, yet important distinction knowing what we do about the relationship between the two.
A father's son
The president has, for all his time in front of the cameras, rarely spoken about this mother. He far more often opts to speak of his father, even telling reporters: 'It was my father who really knew me."
A solo picture of Fred adorned the Oval Office for a time before Mary Anne was added.
Although Donald is the couple's second son, he became head of the family as his property tycoon reputation grew. His older brother Fred Jr drank himself to death at the age of 43, with an unsettled relationship with Fred Sr reported.
Donald didn't have a choice about whether to become his father's prodigy, and he said in 1990s that he was simply 'good at the game'.
The night before I went to Mary Anne's childhood home, I couldn't settle. I soon found myself trawling the internet not for written accounts about Mary Anne, but I needed to hear her voice.
I found an interview clip with Selina Scott in 1995, as well as a video from 1994 with RTE.
At this point, Mary Anne was in her late 70s, and she had been living in the US for more than 50 years. Her island accent was still strong and when she spoke about taking a trip in a helicopter or reminiscing about Fred Trump – 'the most eligible bachelor in town', she gushed – looking her way, the island lass shone through.
I believe Mary Anne loved the glamour of New York, the money, the parties, the opportunities, and her journey. I believe both Fred and then Donald knew this, and in a way, were forever wanting to impress her with the next bigger and better thing they could build.
She thrived as a society housewife in Queens and the city, volunteering with local charities and helping her husband with his real estate business.
I believe she retained her grounding through it all, her perspective, as she rose through Trump Tower – but Donald did not.
He has never had to survive, work the land, abandon his home or get to know his roots. He never learned empathy as his father took the lead in moulding his tycoon successor.
What would Mary Anne say now?
I hopped on the bus to Tong the next morning, excited to see more of the island, albeit only three miles out of town.
I had spent most of the morning speaking to people in the town, finding a polarisation of views like that around the world. The experience can be summarised by the conversation I had with two women, sat in the sun enjoying a chat, who I approached.
One said she 'loved' him and would want to see him in Lewis again, while her friend told me: 'I just think he's a twat.'
The sun was shining, and there was a comfortable sea air blowing as I stepped off the bus. But with every step, I felt more and more uneasy.
His mother's home is number five, and as I stood outside – where Donald himself has stood along with his cousins – I felt ghosts all around me.
I realised I was in a very odd situation of chasing ghosts to understand the most powerful man in the world. And they didn't want me there. I didn't want to be there.
But I kept walking, to knock on the door of number five. No one answered. I was glad they didn't.
As a Scot, I feel angry at the connection our country has to him. I don't know for sure how his family feels, but I wouldn't like to have to answer for the man.
As I walked from Tong to Stornoway, likely a walk undertaken by Mary Anne many times in her youth, I thought: "What would she say now?"
Would she chastise her son as the banner on the Stornoway beach front does? Would she ask Fred to have a word? Would she do nothing?
Donald said in 1992 that he only ever saw his mother angry once. It was when he had defended the actions of boxer Mike Tryson, who had been accused of rape at the time. He was later convicted and sentenced.
Interviewer Charlie Rose said: 'It is said that your mother said: 'Enough, Donald. Shut up'.'
Donald agreed, explaining: 'I think that's probably the first time that my mother absolutely got angry at me. I really mean that. My mother was so crazy when I came out in defence of Mike Tyson,' adding: 'She didn't exactly like the fact that I was defending Iron Mike, but I watched what happened to Mike Tyson. I watched how badly he was represented by an attorney.
'I heard about a girl that late in the evening knocked on his door, was taken in, was raped perhaps, perhaps not. I don't know. Again, I think he was badly represented but I did see that number one, she knocks late in the night. Number two, she's dancing in a beauty contest at 8am.'
As the ups and downs of Donald's divorce from his first wife Ivana Trump hit the headlines in the late 1980s, Mary Anne was photographed leaving a lunch held for Ivana's birthday in the middle of the peak of global media attention.
At the lunch, she made a small speech, and is quoted as saying: 'Well, I guess I'm sort of the villain here today. But I hate the word 'in-law'. I don't consider Ivana my in-law. I consider her my daughter.'
Donald shared in the 1992 interview: 'One of my attorneys said: 'Always count on your mother.'
"I maybe took advantage of my mother. I never appreciated her as much, but she was fantastic.'
It was an odd thing to say, considering Mary Anne died in 2000 – almost as if their relationship was cemented as it was with no development to be had.
Perhaps psychologically, with the echoes of his ancestors flowing through him – ones who through despair stood up to landowners, paired with ambition of surviving and thriving, building bigger and better every time – Donald was always set to be in the White House.
Where else can you go with a mindset like that, focusing on 'the game'?
At his inauguration, Donald held the Gaelic Bible that his mother had. Several in Stornoway cited that as an expression to his roots.
But Donald has never invested his own time into Scotland.
I arrived back in the town, only to pick up my bag, get dinner and head to the airport to go home.
Leaving the island, I now carried with me an odd, unfamiliar and strange sense of sympathy for the man so despised and adored by billions around the world who has never – and likely will never – truly know himself.