A historical gaffe in an English newspaper has sparked outrage for claiming President Biden will be “well disposed” to Britain because his ancestors fled the Famine.
The offending story appeared in the Daily Telegraph under the headline “Seven reasons why Boris and Joe will get on just fine.”
The first reason quotes a US senator who claims “Biden really cares about the UK”.
An excerpt read: “Biden’s great, great, great grandfather, Edward Blewitt, left Ballina, Co Mayo, Ireland for America during the Irish Famine 170 years ago, which could mean he is well-disposed towards Great Britain.”
Podcast host Blindboy Boatclub, best known as one half of the Irish comedy hip-hop group The Rubberbandits, called the journalist who wrote the article a “silly Englishman with a silly English history education.”
The Limerick man, real name David Chambers, tweeted: “They think the Famine is why he will be kind to Britain.
“He can’t even use Wikipedia. The wonders and beauty of the empire have been so deeply indoctrinated into the system since birth that he can’t look up an event that cut our population in half, from which we still haven’t recovered.”
London-based Irish comedian Dara O’Briain told his Twitter followers he wasn’t holding a famine grudge, but the error was “pretty astonishing.”
He wrote: “It’s pretty astonishing that you can be the chief political correspondent of The Telegraph and think that if, it had any relevance at all, the Irish Famine would make somebody more sympathetic to Britain.
“Happy to correct if this was meant as a self-deprecating joke, by the way.”
Christopher Hope, author of the article and the newspaper’s associate editor, acknowledged the controversy.
He said: “I was not trying to make light of the Irish Famine and never would.
“I was simply trying to draw attention to Biden’s connections to his ancestors in Ireland. That’s all.”
