President Joe Biden is spending the majority of his trip to Ireland this week researching his family’s history, from the shoemaker who sailed from Newry in 1849 in search of a better life in America to the Ballina brick-seller who sold 28,000 bricks to pay for his own family’s journey to America.
However, as seen by his official engagements on Thursday, the Ireland he is visiting this week is a far cry from the place his ancestors left so long ago. It’s even a long way from where President John F. Kennedy, the country’s last Catholic president, visited 60 years ago, when the Church remained at the centre of power and economic progress was only getting started.
Ireland, being a strong European economy with a thriving technology sector and one of the highest per capita GDP figures in the entire European Union, bears little resemblance to the country that many Irish Americans still associate with.
At times, it appeared that Biden was among them.
“You hear all these stories about what it was like back in Ireland,” he remarked Thursday after meeting the Irish president, referring to his own grandparents and great-grandparents, who recalled recollections of Ireland passed down to them despite never going themselves.
A day earlier, when visiting a local market and deli in Dundalk, Biden humorously asked why his forefathers left Ireland for a better life.
“I have no idea why my forefathers left here. “It’s lovely,” he said.
Of course, they departed due to a catastrophic famine in the 1840s, which Biden recognised later during the first of two visits on a quest for his ancestors.
Biden was greeted enthusiastically in the town of Dundalk, where many people had waited for hours in the freezing drizzle to see the most Irish of American presidents.
Bagpipers composed a song especially for his visit and performed it while he toured a stone castle from which he could overlook the harbour from which his great-great-great-grandfather sailed to America in 1849.
“It feels like I’m coming home,” Biden said, looking out across the lake. Later, in a tavern, he spoke to a group of distant cousins.
Biden’s four-day trip to Ireland is light on policy, though he did spend a night in Belfast celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
Instead, his trip resembles a family spring break. He is accompanied by his sister Valerie and son Hunter, with whom he visited ancestral places on Wednesday.
House Republicans are investigating Hunter Biden, alleging he was involved in questionable overseas business practises. Hunter Biden has denied the accusations. On this week’s journey, though, he has served as a steadying presence for his father, assisting him at times in navigating the eager crowds.
The majority of Biden’s time in Ireland will be spent reflecting on the past. The White House released a multi-page genealogical table outlining his ancestors on the island. And, as he reconnects with his roots, Biden has strived to discover an inherent Irishness.
“In my opinion, the Irish are the only people in the world who are nostalgic about the future,” he stated on Tuesday. “Consider it. It’s because, in my experience, hope is what beats in the hearts of all people, especially the hearts of the Irish. Hope. “Every action is motivated by hope.”
Still, he’ll be focused on modern-day Ireland for at least a day.
Biden is set to discuss a variety of global concerns, including the Ukraine conflict, with Irish politicians on Thursday. Ireland has been formally neutral in international hostilities since the 1930s, but the European war has put that neutrality to the test. The government has accepted over 75,000 Ukrainian refugees and has criticised Russia’s incursion.
He’s also expected to continue negotiations regarding the Good Friday Agreement that began on Wednesday in Belfast, as leaders attempt to restore the power-sharing government that has been paralysed for more than a year due to a dispute over Brexit trade regulations.
He also plans to attend a tree-planting ceremony and ring the Peace Bell, which was unveiled at the 10th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and symbolises healing between The Troubles’ warring sides. The bell is held in place by two oak logs from Northern Ireland and Dublin.
Later, Biden will address the Irish Parliament in a speech that is likely to discuss the US-Ireland relationship, both political and personal. And he’ll round off the day with a banquet meal at Dublin Castle, which was previously the headquarters of the British government’s authority in Ireland.
Through all of his formal engagements, Biden will address a country that has emerged as an unexpected pillar of progressive liberalism, despite the rise of right-wing populism abroad.
Ireland became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage through popular vote in 2015; the current Taoiseach, or prime minister, is gay. He is also Ireland’s first ethnic minority prime minister.
Three years later, Ireland overwhelmingly decided to repeal one of the world’s most stringent abortion laws. For decades, Irish women seeking to terminate a pregnancy had to travel to England or face an illegal, often dangerous abortion in Ireland.
Taken together, the two elections overturned decades of church rule in Ireland, traditionally a conservative Catholic bastion. Following a succession of scandals, including assaults of unwed mothers in so-called Magdalene laundries and abuse of minors by paedophile priests, the church’s credibility was severely harmed.
Biden’s Irish identity, which he is examining this week by visiting two familial hometowns, is inextricably linked to his own Catholicism. Later in the week, he’s scheduled to visit the Our Lady of Knock shrine, where the Virgin Mary appeared in 1879, and deliver a speech in front of St. Muredach’s Cathedral, where his great-great-great-grandfather sold bricks to fund his family’s voyage to America.
When referring to his background and upbringing in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden usually combines his Irishness and Catholic faith.
“Every time I walked out of my Irish Catholic grandfather’s home up in Scranton, Pennsylvania – his name was Ambrose Finnegan – and he’d yell, ‘Joey, keep the faith,'” Biden recalled last month, recalling a boyhood experience.
