Joe Biden has started a three-day personal and political pilgrimage to the Republic of Ireland, receiving a rapturous welcome despite heavy wind and rain.
The US president flew into Dublin on Wednesday afternoon after concluding a politically charged visit to Northern Ireland. The taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, greeted Biden after he descended from Air Force One for an expected three-day celebration of the president’s Irish heritage.
Biden met US embassy staff and other well-wishers who waved US and Irish flags at an airport hangar. “Everyone I grew up with became a cop, a firefighter or a priest – I couldn’t qualify for any of them, so here I am,” he joked.
Weather conditions grounded the president’s helicopter, so a cavalcade of armoured vehicles – watched by people from motorway overpasses – ferried the entourage to the Cooley peninsula in County Louth, where the president’s great-grandfather James Finnegan was born.
Biden was scheduled to visit ancestral graves in Kilwirra cemetery and the 12th-century Carlingford Castle before visiting Dundalk, a town close to the border with Northern Ireland.
Bunting and flags lined the main street in Dundalk, which teemed with Irish police and US Secret Service agents.
The president, accompanied by Ireland’s foreign minister, Micheál Martin, was to meet local dignitaries and other people in the Windsor pub and restaurant, the venue apparently selected because of its upstairs floor and 200-person capacity rather than a nod to the Windsor framework or the British royal family.
“If they start looking for food, I’m in trouble, because there’s no chef on today,” said the owner, Donal McGeough. “But we have plenty of drinks, including non-alcoholic beverages like Guinness 0.0.” Biden is a teetotaller.
Driving rain cleared as Biden’s cavalcade arrived in Dundalk just before 7pm. Hundreds of people lining Clanbrassil Street cheered when he emerged from his vehicle and spoke to a group in front of Gino’s diner. He took selfies with their phones and waved to the crowd before entering a deli called McAteers Food House.
Biden spent 20 minutes in a deli and bakery talking to staff about Dundalk, rescue dogs and Irish furnishings in the Oval Office. “I don’t know why the hell my ancestors left here. It’s beautiful,” the president said.
Jerome McAteer, the deli shop’s owner, said Biden appeared younger than he had expected. “We’re so happy and honoured to have been selected. We were told last Friday he would visit. The hardest thing was keeping the secret. He just seemed the most normal person. He looked younger than I expected. He has amazing teeth.”
There was an awkward moment when Biden appeared to mix up the All Black New Zealand rugby team with a historic British police force renowned for their brutality.
He thanked Rob Kearney, a relative who played rugby for Ireland, for the tie he was wearing and remarked: “This was given to me by one of these guys, right here. He was a hell of a rugby player. He beat the hell out of the Black and Tans.”
Residents expressed pride that Biden had chosen to emulate Bill Clinton’s visit to Dundalk in 2000. “It’s not every town in Ireland that can boast two presidential visits,” said Barry Holland, who works in his family’s hardware store. “It’s very significant for the region – it puts the region on the map.”
Since Clinton’s visit to Dundalk – a republican bastion nicknamed El Paso during the Troubles – the town had transformed, said Holland. “In those days you couldn’t walk up the street with a union jack on your clothing. Now no one would bat an eyelid.”
Colm Coburn, 58, who works in a paint shop, said Biden, 80, was very welcome, but the excitement did not match the euphoria of Clinton’s visit. “Clinton was charismatic, like a film star. Biden is” – Coburn paused – “older.”
Despite heavy security, the White House entourage – which includes the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Biden’s son Hunter and sister Valerie – is expected to be more relaxed south of the border. The one-day visit to Belfast involved delicate political choreography – celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement while navigating the Democratic Unionist party’s boycott of power sharing.
Biden was to return to Dublin on Wednesday night. On Thursday, he will hold separate meetings with the Irish president, Michael D Higgins, and Varadkar, before making a speech to a joint sitting of parliament, following in the footsteps of John F Kennedy in 1963, Ronald Reagan in 1984 and Clinton in 1995. There will be a banquet dinner at Dublin Castle.
On Friday, the US’s second Catholic president will fly to County Mayo and tour the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Knock, a Catholic shrine. He will also visit the North Mayo Heritage Centre’s family history research unit and meet relatives from another side of his family, before making a speech in the evening outside St Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina.
The president is to return to Washington on Saturday.
