President Donald Trump continues to push for a lavish ballroom that would be built where the White House's demolished East Wing once stood — a proposal that has sparked its own fight in Washington — but that is not the only ballroom on his agenda. Trump is also proposing a ballroom for his Trump International Golf Links & Hotel in Doonbeg, Ireland, and according to Washington Post reporter Terrence McCoy, the project is hitting a major snag despite support from many local residents.

McCoy reports that the Irish project — the "other ballroom" — is generating far less opposition than the White House plan.

"Unlike in Washington, where Trump's push to fast-track a grandiose White House ballroom set off a political and legal fight that has now reached the Supreme Court, the population of Doonbeg, which hovers around 300, had lined up behind the project," McCoy wrote in the Washington Post. In the tourism-dependent village, supporters see the expansion as important to local jobs.

Standing in the way is Liam Madden, an Irish resident committed to protecting an endangered snail. One man can carry that much weight because of how Irish planning works: any member of the public may appeal a local planning decision to An Bord Pleanála, Ireland's independent planning appeals board, which has the power to uphold, revise, or overturn it. That right of appeal is why the ballroom's fate now rests with the board rather than with the commission that approved it.

"Questions over the fate of the threatened Vertigo angustior snail — a microscopic mollusk nestled in Doonbeg's sandy dunes — had bedeviled the golf property even before the Trump Organization owned it," McCoy explains. "But in February, (a local planning) commission approved the ballroom provided the Trumps offer a snail restoration plan ... The jubilation, however, was quickly cut short."

McCoy continues: "Days after the February approval, a lone appeal was lodged by Liam Madden, a hermetic figure notorious for blocking hundreds, if not thousands, of development projects across Ireland, including a previous expansion plan in Doonbeg. Impervious to shaming or calls for decency, he once stirred such rage that a foe attacked him with a blowtorch."

Madden told an appellate board: "Please, refuse this nonsense."

According to McCoy, the 76-year-old Madden is well known in Ireland for "his ability to torpedo plans."

Trump, McCoy reports, is aware of concerns about the endangered snail and told Irish environmentalist Tony Lowes, "I'll be a friend to the snail." Madden is not convinced.

The Vertigo angustior, which McCoy describes as "a fickle creature with exacting ecological needs," has long troubled the golf course. Known as the narrow-mouthed whorl snail and measuring roughly two millimeters, the species is protected across the European Union under the Habitats Directive, and Doonbeg's dune system is designated conservation habitat — a status that applies regardless of who owns the land. The Trump Organization bought the resort in 2014, inheriting the links along with the longstanding snail dispute. Even before the course was built, Lowes' Friends of the Irish Environment filed a lawsuit to protect the snail. A judge ordered that the snail's lot be "maintained or improved," and a settlement agreement even allowed for the appointment of a snail expert as a sort of steward.

For years, the snail thrived, and Trump promised to sustain it. But Lowes said the Trumps have not kept their word, and the snail's population has since plunged.

What happens next is procedural but decisive: An Bord Pleanála must rule on Madden's appeal, and its decision will determine whether February's approval stands, survives with conditions, or is refused. Until then, the "other ballroom" sits alongside its White House counterpart in legal review — one caught up in a Supreme Court fight, the other awaiting a verdict shaped by a two-millimeter snail and the lone man defending it.