Joe Biden‘s Irish ancestry, which has seen him hailed as ‘unmistakably a son of Ireland’, has often been lauded by the US President – but his accompanying English roots have only been snubbed.
Despite proudly speaking about his ‘Irishness’, Mr Biden has caused controversy with his jokes and jibes about the British – even hinting at his ’embarrassment’ over his father’s UK ancestors.
The 80-year-old, whose parents were both born in the US, has previously been severely criticised for a joke that ‘anyone wearing orange’ is not welcome in his home.
He has also in the past turned down an opportunity to speak to the BBC because he is ‘Irish’, and hinted at an embarrassment that his surname is of English descent.
The US President previously revealed how his English father, Joseph Biden Snr., had the ‘saving grace’ of also having Irish heritage, despite connections to Westbourne, West Sussex.
Joe Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania yet traces his roots back to County Louth and County Mayo in the Republic of Ireland
Mr Biden previously declined to comment to the BBC, telling the reporter: ‘I’m Irish’
Joe Biden was briefly greeted by Rishi Sunak on the steps of Air Force One in Belfast last night (pictured)
After a swift greeting with the UK leader Biden moved away to salute the King’s personal representative for County Antrim, Lord-Lieutenant David McCorkell. He then appeared to be wrapped in a friendly embrace with Jane Hartley, the glamourous US ambassador to the UK he appointed last year
Mr Biden said last year: ‘He had the saving grace, on his mother’s side, of having a Hanafee from Galway.
‘That’s the only thing that saved him. And you all think I’m kidding. I’m not.’
It was not the first time that Mr Biden has hinted at a familial embarrassment at his father’s English heritage.
He previously recalled his aunt telling him when he was young: ‘Your father’s not a bad man. He’s just English.’
More recently, Mr Biden appeared to snub UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as he brushed off his greeting after Air Force One landed on Tuesday.
After a swift greeting with the UK leader on the tarmac in blustery, chilly conditions he moved away to salute the King’s personal representative for County Antrim, Lord-Lieutenant David McCorkell.
He then appeared to be wrapped in a longer, much more friendly embrace with Jane Hartley, the glamourous US ambassador to the UK appointed by the president last year.
The US President’s boasting of his Irish heritage has often been accompanied by ‘anti-British’ slights
Mr Biden has, in the past, also spoken of a discomfort at Biden being an English surname and revealed ‘my grandfather and my mother were never crazy about it being English’.
Last year, it emerged that Mr Biden once revealed his mother Jean so disliked England that she chose to sleep on the floor rather than in a bed in which the Queen had previously slept.
British screenwriter Georgia Pritchett claimed the US President made the revelation when they met in the White House during his period as vice-president.
She wrote in her autobiography how Mr Biden had recalled his mother visiting the UK and spending a night in a hotel where, Jean was told, the Queen had once stayed.
‘She was so appalled that she slept on the floor all night, rather than risk sleeping on a bed that the Queen had slept on,’ Pritchett wrote.
He has also recalled his mother telling him not to bow to the late Queen.
The US President’s boasting of his Irish heritage has often been accompanied by ‘anti-British’ slights
‘When I told my mother I was going to have an audience with the Queen of England, the first thing she said was, “Don’t you bow down to her”,’ he wrote in his autobiography.
During his long political career, the US President has made a series of risky jokes at times when he has been proudly displaying his Irish heritage.
As a senator in 1985, he spoke out against making it easier to extradite Irish Republican Army militants from the US to Britain, a sentiment popular with Irish-Americans but not in Britain.
In a 2012 meeting with then prime minister David Cameron, while he was vice-president, Mr Biden jokingly offered a message to Ambrose Finnegan, his grandfather, that ‘things have changed’ as he sat down with a British leader.
In 2015, Mr Biden was fiercely criticised after he quipped while welcoming then Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny to his home: ‘Anyone wearing orange is not welcome in.’
Northern Ireland’s primarily Protestant unionist community associate themselves with the colour in celebration of William of Orange’s victory over Catholic forces at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
And when he was president-elect after winning the US election in 2020, Mr Biden turned down a chance to speak with a BBC reporter, telling them: ‘The BBC? I’m Irish.’
Mr Biden’s team was forced to deny that he was ‘anti-British’ this week after the DUP slammed the president as ‘extremely partisan’ after he trumpeted his Irish roots.
The president was only expected to ‘greet’ the leaders of the main Northern Ireland political parties before his speech, after which he immediately headed over the border to the Republic, where he will spend the next three days.
He will not be visiting Stormont, where the power-sharing Assembly is currently suspended amid a boycott by the DUP.
The senior director for Europe at the US National Security Council, Amanda Sloat, stepped up to defend the President.
‘It’s simply untrue – the fact that the President is going to be engaging for the third time in three months, and then again next month and then again in June, with the prime minister of the UK shows how close our co-operation is with the UK,’ she said.
She added: ‘President Biden obviously is a very proud Irish-American, he is proud of those Irish roots, but he is also a strong supporter of our bilateral partnership with the UK, and not only on a bilateral basis within Nato, the G7, on the UN Security Council, and we truly are working in lockstep with the British government on all of the pressing global challenges that our countries are facing.’
He has addressed his English heritage in a speech in this visit to Europe, but it is believed to be the first time he has done this publicly.
Mr Biden will visit both on his tour of the country this week, which will follow his swift trip to Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
His connections to Ireland come mainly on his mother’s side with his great-great-grandfather Edward Blewitt having grown up in Ballina, Co. Mayo.
Blewitt emigrated to Scranton after the Irish potato famine of the 1840s.
Another of the US President’s great-great-grandfathers, Owen Finnegan, was a shoemaker from Co. Louth who emigrated to America in 1849.
His family, including Mr Biden’s great-grandfather James Finnegan, followed him in 1850.
During an event at the White House last month to celebrate St Patrick’s Day, Mr Biden was described by current Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar as ‘unmistakably a son of Ireland’
During an event at the White House last month to celebrate St Patrick’s Day, Mr Biden was described by current Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar as ‘unmistakably a son of Ireland’.
He said: ‘Every American President is a little bit Irish on St Patrick’s Day – but some are more Irish than others.
‘I think it’s fair to say that today we’re celebrating our national day with a President who is unmistakably a son of Ireland.’
Despite his denials of being ‘anti-British’, Mr Biden again lauded his Irish heritage on his trip to the island yesterday.
President Joe Biden riffed on his heritage and notions of Irishness when he met up with relatives at a bar and restaurant not far from the home of his great-great grandfather on Wednesday afternoon.
It may have been an odd setting for a teetotaller, but the relaxed vibe let him hit all his favorite themes.
Somehow he even managed to shoehorn in a well-worn story about Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
But his main theme was the hope and optimism he derived from his roots in Ireland.
‘I’ve often said the Irish are the only people who are nostalgic about the future. In my experience hope is what beats in the heart of all people, particularly the heart of the Irish,’ he said at the Windsor Bar and Restaurant in Dundalk, Co. Louth.
‘Every action is about hope that we can make things better, hope to build both our nations that has been passed down generation to generation by our families. And it’s hope that continues to this day.’
President Joe Biden delivered a speech on his roots during a stop at a bar and restaurant in Dundalk, Louth, not far from where his great-great grandfather lived before leaving for the US
Biden meets relatives at the Windsor Pub and Restaurant on the second day of his trip
Like millions of other Irish Americans, Biden’s ancestors set sail from their home at the peak of the Great Famine at the end of the 1840s.
He returned on Wednesday during a four-day visit. After touring nearby Carlingford Castle, he said: ‘Coming here feels like coming home.’
With him were his son Hunter and sister Valerie. He introduced them to a gathering of locals, that included dozens of cousins.
‘Stand up guys, I’m proud of you,’ he said.
But his speech may be remembered best in Ireland for an unfortunate gaffe as he paid tribute to his cousin Rob Kearney, who played international rugby and was part of a side that beat the world-dominating New Zealand team in Chicago.
‘Was a hell of a rugby player, beat the hell out of the Black and Tans,’ said Biden, referring accidentally to the brutal, hated police constables recruited to keep republicans in line during the War of Independence, rather than the All Blacks, as New Zealand are known.
The result was good-natured amusement among Irish viewers, who are simply thrilled to have the president in the country.
Biden takes a selfie outside the Windsor Bar in Dundalk as crowds line the streets for his visit
Joe’s son Hunter walks along the line of fans and shakes hands before joining his father in the pub
Biden was treated like a returning prodigal cousin as his motorcade arrived in County Louth. It was here that one line of his ancestors left for the U.S. in 1849
Crowds lined the streets of Dundalk to catch a glimpse of the motorcade and ‘the Beast’
The people of Co. Louth count Biden as one of their own and turned out in force
While much of his message was designed to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Belfast Agreement that ended decades of violence in Ireland, he still managed to throw in his familiar story about the Chinese leader, slightly adapted for a new audience.
‘I spent more time with him than any world leader has over the last 10 years … and I was in the Tibetan plateau with him and traveled 17, 000 miles in China over 10 years,’ said Biden.
‘And he asked me to define America… and I can say the same of Ireland.
‘I can. Yes, I can in one word: possibilities. Anything is possible if we set our mind to it.
‘That’s who we are.’
Biden was treated like a returning prodigal cousin as his motorcade arrived in County Louth. It was here that one line of his ancestors left for the U.S. in 1849.
Locals cheered as he arrived in the town of Dundalk.
Aoudhan McGuness, 40, a mortgage adviser, said: ‘It’s a momentous occasion for the town.’
His wife Linda, 39, who has a dental lab and who watches Fox and CNN, interjects: ‘He’s doing better here than in America.’
They both commute to work in the north – a crossing that was harder when British soldiers were deployed around the border.
‘It’s a new world now compared to that, we don’t want to go back to it,’ she said with a nod to the Good Friday Agreement Biden is here to mark.
People screamed when Biden’s car ‘the Beast’ drove by.
‘He’s gonna have a pint at Windsor – that’s the funniest thing I ever heard,’ said Kayla McCardle Stokes, 16, a student.
His first stop in Louth was at Carlingford Castle.
‘It feels wonderful,’ he told reporters during a tour. ‘Feels like I’m coming home.’
In fact, as he looked out across Carlingford Lough, he was looking at the route Owen Finnegan would have taken when he left Ireland for good and boarded the Brothers ship in April 1849.
After spending the first half of the day in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Biden flew to Dublin, the capital of the Republic of Ireland.
From there he drove north to Carlingford and a chance to meet cousins who still live in the area and hear about his Irish family.
He was met by Ireland’s deputy premier Micheal Martin and they were joined by Rob Kearney, a cousin who played international rugby for Ireland.
Biden was behind schedule by the time he arrived. His entourage was forced to travel by road rather than air because of bad weather, and abandoned plans to visit the family cemetery.
Biden gazes out into Carlingford Lough which runs into the Irish Sea
‘It feels wonderful,’ Biden told reporters during a tour of Carlingford Castle with Martin. ‘Feels like I’m coming home.’ Louth was home to his great-great granfather before he set sail
Biden received a warm welcome in Co. Louth, the home of his Finnegan ancestors
After touring the castle he want to Dundalk, where he was cheered when he emerged from the Beast for a walkabout in the town center on Wednesday evening
The president, wearing a blue cap, shrugged off the rain.
‘It’s fine, it’s Ireland,’ he said.
The Carlingford Pipe Band, a four-piece bagpipe and drum ensemble, arranged to play a special composition, ‘A Biden Return,’ for the visit.
It is the third time Biden has visited the area, coming first in 2016 as vice president.
The tumbledown house where James Finnegan, Biden’s great grandfather, was born in 1940 is still standing, and it is currently being renovated by new owners.
In all the president’s trip will last four days, mixing official business with a chance to explore his Irish roots.
So in Belfast he delivered a speech marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Belfast Agreement, before getting on to the family business later in the day.
He has been accompanied on the trip by his son Hunter and sister Valerie, attracting questions about who is paying for their travel.
On Thursday he will deliver a speech to the Irish parliament, plant a tree and ring a ‘peace bell.’
The motorcade leaves Carlingfor for the town of Dundalk. Crowds lined the route
Earlier Biden delivered a speech at Ulster University and said he hoped that Northern Ireland’s deadlocked political parties would soon return to a powersharing government
From left, U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom Jane Hartley, Valerie Biden Owens, Hunter Biden and U.S. Special Envoy for Northern Ireland Joe Kennedy III listen to the speech
And then on Friday it is back to family matters. He will travel west to Co. Mayo, to learn more about another branch of his family, the Blewitts, who left Ireland at about the same time as the Finnegans.
Waiting to see Biden later at a pub in Dundalk was Andrea McKevitt, a local councilor and a distant cousin.
She said Louth was an important place to visit for more reasons than family.
‘Part of the reason for Biden’s trip is to celebrate 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement, and we here are in a border County, right.
‘Many people have lived through and know what the Troubles are all about here,’ she said referring to the decades of violence that blighted Ireland, but largely ended with the peace deal.
