The Taoiseach I

It had been a disastrous week for Patrick Keogh, duly chosen head of government of the Republic of Ireland. It had, in fact, been a disaster week for the whole Republic, to say nothing of the North. Massaging his temples and taking another swig of water, he turned to the Tanaiste, "Frank, just... just give a full summary please, so we're all on the same page." He waved at the gathered ministers around the table, all of whom had been running themselves ragged for days and very much looked the part.

Frank Brennan, Tanaiste of Ireland and Patrick's main coalition partner, nodded. The much older man adjusted his glasses and adjusted his papers, "Very well," he spoke, in his odd monotone, and addressed the fully gathering: 17 ministers for 18 departments (counting the Taoiseach himself), finally having a moment to all sit in one office and strategize where they'd be going from here.

Brennan began, "At precisely midnight at New Years, as-yet unexplained anomaly transported Ireland, in its entirety (plus a few outlying islands), from its position on Earth to what we now know is called by the locals 'the Sunset Sea,' an undetermined distance west of what the locals call "Cape Kraken." This event has, obviously, cut us off from all prior forms of communication or other interactions with any other Earth polity save of course for the North. We face imminent shortages of more or less everything, but most immediately energy. We can confirm the loss of the Moffat pipeline, though Corrib is still present and active, and have therefore marked all existing gas stockpiles, as well as all oil stockpiles, for emergency purposes only. We're certain services powered, hospitals, military, and so forth, powered but will need to deal with this sooner than later. Food is similarly a concern, although less immediately so since we have confirmed that at least some importation from the locals will the be possible."

Patrick nodded, all of that had been reported to him already, although having seen the exact figures, and his suspicions of the actual agricultural output the locals were capable of based on their reported technological level, left him rather pessimistic about how much they could actually feasibly import.

"The day following this event," the other man continued, "as emergency services and local government attempted to maintain order around the country, an altercation occurred on Cape Clear Island with a group of..." he trailed off for a moment, but picked up at the urging of the Justice Minister seated next to him, "well, a number of viking-like pirates, who we now know to be of the local culture called Ironborn. They attempted a raid on a village, but despite their numbers were driven off quickly by a combination of armed locals, police, and a pair of military men who had been in town on a cash-in-transit mission."

"Why were they moving cash on New Years?" muttered the Health minister, more to himself than anything.

"Irrelevant, Minister Lynch," the Tanaiste said, dismissively. "They were chased off with no deaths on our side fortunately, apparently completely unfamiliar with firearms of any kind and therefore intimidated. Several of their ships escaped, and a report was made to Haulbowline, where Commodore Cullen made the... hasty decision to pursue with full force."

"Without so much as asking you, Defense Minister Brennan," Dermot Callaghan, the Finance Minister, chimed in. Patrick idly noted that it was rather impressive how, despite everything, the cabinet's party divide was still fairly easy to discern.

The jab seemed to roll off Frank entirely enough, "I have spoken to the Commodore regarding this, and decided that given ongoing acts of God, a bit of excess initiative was not a mistake worth dwelling on, given that it cost us nothing of note,"

"Ah yes, nothing of note, Callaghan retorted, "except our glorious Navy of six ships accidentally taking part in a damn WAR."

"For God's sake Dermot," Patrick interjected, hoping to stop this all from escalating, "just let the man finish the report."

With his fellow minister duly chastised, Frank continued, "As I was saying: the Navy pursued the ships back to their base, a nearby archipelago called The Iron Islands by the locals, ending up, ultimately, around one of the southern islands, called Pyke. It was here they, and the pirates they pursued, found themselves in the final stages of, apparently, a collapsing rebellion. From what I and the Taoiseach have gathered, primarily through lengthy conversation with the reigning monarch and an assortment of his lieutenants (facilitated by ship's radio) but also from a few other lesser sources, the Iron Islands is a subdivision of the continent-wide monarchy of Westeros, and was in rebellion against such. Our ship's chasing, sinking, and capturing of several members of, the small pirate fleet was witnessed by the much larger royal fleet, which had already taken over the island of Pyke and was in mop-up operations against the rebel rulers there."

Brennan paused and took a drink of water, then continued, "it is here we come to the immediately pertinent issue: reigning monarch Robert Baratheon was deeply impressed by our ship's weaponry, and although initially skeptical of our situation did come to believe it due to a combination of the testimony of the captured Ironborn and, moreso I suspect, being surprised by our technology. However, in his, pardon my bluntness, barbarian, medieval warlord way, he does consider everything in this sea to be subject to him, and he has an immense warfleet floating days away in the active process of making that point. They are, according to our sailors, medieval nothings with swords, arrows, and spears, but they are NUMEROUS, and we possess neither great numbers of armed forces nor a domestic arms industry, to say nothing of our other issues following all of this. If he decided to keep that army sailing north from his current position... well I'm sure you all can put together the disaster that scenario would be."

A grim silence was the only response to that.

"Quite. Now, as it stands we have: a medieval warlord, domestic chaos, and no existing foreign trading partner. In hopes of dealing with all of this, I, in my capacity as both Foreign and Defense minister, as well as the Taoiseach, managed to come to a TENTATIVE agreement with King Robert."

"Well, really more with his brother," Patrick noted, "the king got bored when we started talking numbers."

"That is more accurate, admittedly," the Tanaiste conceded, "nonetheless, a basic agreement was reached. Essentially, while they are suitably impressed by our ships and firearms, there is no way to conceal how few of the former we have long term, possibly even short term, and neither I, nor the Taoiseach, nor any of you for that matter, wish to turn the isle into some fortress filled with armed guerillas, even if we had the material capability to sustain such a course of action. As such, though we have concealed the limits of our arms situation, we have agreed to a tributary status-"

"WHAT" howled Callaghan, only to be hushed by the Education minister.

"-a tributary status," Brennan repeated. "This will place us technically under the auspices of the Westerosi monarchy, but only in the loosest sense. We will swear no formal oaths, continue to run our own affairs, and our contributions to the monarchy will simply be an as-yet-to-be-negotiated percentage of annual income and a squad of armed guards exclusively for the royal family. Light terms, all told, all thanks to a few withheld facts and a show of force from some overeager sailors. I did impress upon both King Robert and his brother, Lord Stannis, that the final treaty would have to be agreed upon by the Dail, which I believe they understand to be a noble council or somesuch thing, but regardless."

"And what, precisely, is your plan should the Dail, or this 'King Robert' reject the terms of our re-subjugation?" hissed the finance minister. His conduct hadn't exactly been professional today, but, Patrick had to admit that he wasn't exactly at his best given the circumstances either.

Brennan simply shrugged, "Minister Callaghan I will fully admit I have no idea. I can plan for many things, being plucked from the Earth and deposited into some kind of historical drama are not one of them. I can say, however, that death and deprivation are most likely to follow... and likely will regardless, given our dire circumstances."

Ronan Kiley, Minister for Enterprise, concurred, "As our dear Finance Minister is likely aware of himself. What's the usual effect of Miracles on the national budget minister?"

"Enough!" Patrick slammed his fist on the table, "I know sniping at each other is a good distraction, but in case you've all forgotten, we're still in a state of emergency. Now, as for negotiations with Baratheon, Frank and I told the king that would be best held at his capital rather than here. I told him it's because of all the chaos, and while that's true I'll admit I'm also afraid that some guy with a crown coming to nominally take charge showing up in Dublin would probably get ugly fast. Didn't tell him that of course, but he accepted the excuse and said he'd have maps given to our boys, who are probably nearly back to base by now. The king told us it was no hurry in showing up at this 'King's Landing' capital of his, since apparently he's holding a tourney at some other city to celebrate winning the war."

"Lannisport," Frank added.

"Yes, that. Anyway, he's doing that and he said we can take some time to get our house in order, but that once his tournament's done, he'd send his brother North to 'have a look around.'"

"So there IS some medieval royal coming here then?" Aodhán Ó Raghallaigh, the Justice Minister, asked, dubiously.

"Not for some time," replied the Taoiseach replied. At least, I hope not...

"We instructed on ship to remain with the Westerosi, which the King was pleased about," Brennan clarified, "The crew will eventually be leading this 'Stannis Baratheon' back to us, but in the meantime will be reporting back regularly about what the observe as they follow the royal army, and of course will keep us informed as to how much longer this tournament business seems likely to continue."

"Which gives us time to at least somewhat stabilize things here, hopefully," Patrick finished, to a rather skeptical reception. But of course, that left a big issue to be discussed...

"Now, Frank, tell them about the latest from Belfast..."

So, things to note:
1. Real politicians aren't in this (although real PARTIES are) because I consider writing dialogue for presently living people awful to do and worse to read, even if I DID know how Leo Varadkar or whomever actually spoke.

2. Pursuant to that: I'm NOT Irish. I find the political and historical particulars of Ireland, combined with it being a nice, sizable island, make it an interesting CHOICE for this kind of thing, but there's NUMEROUS political and social subtleties I'm liable to mess up from just being some random foreigner who's been there once and read a lot. If you ARE Irish and something bothers you, please, chime in.

3. I'm not factoring COVID into this, on the grounds that I honestly just don't want to.