A PORTRAIT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AS A YOUNG MAN
IN IRELAND, SOFT POWER IS USUALLY SERVED up in a pint glass. World leaders visiting the country can expect to be treated to a Guinness by the Taoiseach (a.k.a. Prime Minister) during the obligatory photo op inside a genuine Irish pub. But when Ireland’s new Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, welcomed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Dublin in early July, he broke with tradition. Instead of clinking pints of the black stuff in a dimly lit bar, Varadkar invited fitness fanatic Trudeau to don his running shoes and go for a jog in a local park. The unorthodox meeting wasn’t just a photo op, the new Prime Minister insists, sitting in his Dublin office on July 7. The jog also allowed him to talk freely with his Canadian counterpart away from the note takers and photographers. “He was able to give me some advice on the experience of being a new head of government,” Varadkar says. “He was 18 months in office and I was 18 days in office, so he had a few tips to give me.”
When Varadkar ascended to his country’s highest office on June 14, he became, at 38, the youngest Prime Minister in Ireland’s history, and by far its least typical. Born to an Indian father and an Irish mother, Varadkar represents a break from the parade of aging white men who predated him,
