Ballina, Ireland
AP
Quoting Irish poetry and soaking up the cheers of thousands, President Joe Biden on Friday pronounced Ireland not just part of his family history but part of his soul as he wrapped up a trip that gave him the kind of adoration that eludes him back in the US.
Roughly 27,000 people gathered at the foot of St Muredach’s Cathedral, constructed in part with bricks made by Biden’s great-great-great grandfather. Biden drew a crowd was nearly double the size of the town’s population – some drove from hours away and waited nearly all day in the rain and cold for a chance to see him, calling out for “the Joe show” to begin.
President Joe Biden delivers a speech at St Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina, Ireland, on Friday, 14th April, 2023. PICTURE: Brian Lawless/PA via AP.
“Over the years, stories of this place have become part of my soul,” Biden told the massive crowd, associating himself with those in the audience as “we Irish” and a “part of my family lore.”
It’s no wonder he said repeatedly during his trip that he didn’t want to leave.
President Joe Biden touches part of the original stonework from the apparition gable at the Knock Shrine as he talks with Father Richard Gibbons, parish priest and rector of Knock Shrine, in Knock, Ireland, on Friday, 14th April, 2023. PICTURE: AP Photo/Patrick Semansky.
AT IRISH SHRINE, BIDEN MEETS PRIEST WHO GAVE BEAU LAST RITES
President Joe Biden was moved to tears on Friday during a stop at a Catholic shrine when he discovered that a chaplain there had performed last rites for his late son Beau Biden.
“It was incredible to see him,” Biden said later during remarks at the foot of a cathedral in nearby Ballina. “It seemed like a sign.”
Knock Shrine is a pilgrimage site where, according to Catholic lore, the saints Mary, Joseph and John the Evangelist appeared near a stone wall in 1879. Biden touched the remaining old wall, and toured the site with priest Father Richard Gibbons.
Gibbons said he discovered earlier in the day that the Father Frank O’Grady working at the site was the same one who’d performed last rites, a ceremony in the Catholic faith that spiritually prepares people for death, for Beau.
It’s common in the Catholic faith for priests to move around to different posts during their lives in the church. O’Grady is a former US Army chaplain and was formerly assigned to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, where Beau died in 2015 from brain cancer at the age of 46.
Gibbons said he did not know about the Biden connection until Friday.
“I told the President that,” Gibbons told BBC Ulster. “He wanted to meet him straightaway, so he dispatched a Secret Service agent to go and find him.”
He said it was “a wonderful, spontaneous thing that happened”.
“He was crying and it really affected him,” Gibbons said of Biden. “Then we said a prayer, we said a decade of the rosary for his family, we lit a candle. Then he took a moment or two for private prayer.”
O’Grady told Irish national broadcaster RTE that he was summoned to meet the president.
“He gave me a big hug, it was like a reunion. He told me he appreciated everything that was done,” he said. “I hadn’t seen him really in eight years since Beau died. His son Hunter was there too, so we had a real reunion.”
O’Grady said of the President, “He has been grieving a lot, but I think the grief is kind of going down a bit. We talked a little bit about how grief can take several years.”
The death of his elder son rocked the President, who was Vice President at the time. He said he chose not to run for president in 2016 in part because of Beau’s death. He talks of Beau often, including during a speech to the Irish parliament this week when he said it was his son who should have been standing there as president.
After the visit to the shrine on Friday, Biden toured a hospice center that displays a plaque commemorating his son.
Biden was in Ireland this week with his sister Valerie and son Hunter, touring his ancestral home and meeting with the nation’s leaders.
– DARLENE SUPERVILLE, COLLEEN LONG and JILL LAWLESS, Knock, Ireland/AP
Back home, Biden’s approval rating is near the lowest point of his presidency. And even some fellow Democrats have suggested he shouldn’t run for reelection. On trips within the US to discuss his economic and social policies, Biden often gets a smattering of admirers waving as he drives by, and friendly crowds applaud his speeches. But the reception doesn’t compare with welcome he got here in the old sod.
Here, he was greeted by fans at every turn. The streets of Ballina teemed with people holding Irish and US flags, lining up for blocks and blocks along the narrow streets. While Biden toured a Catholic shrine earlier in the day and was briefed on his ancestors at a heritage center, musicians and dancers entertained the massive crowd for hours. A cheer burst from the crowd as his helicopter arrived overhead.
“Being here does feel, it feels like coming home,” Biden said. “It really does.”
Even though Biden hasn’t officially launched his 2024 presidential run, his speech on Friday evening had the feel of a campaign rally. Dozens of people stood behind him on risers with US and Irish flags, spotlights swept across the night sky and huge video screens beamed his image over a river where throngs were watching. U2’s “Beautiful Day” played as he ended his 20-minute speech.
“This is just a fantastic occasion for us all, for an American president to be here in Ballina,” said Howard Tracy, 52, who waited with his 13-year-old son Adam nearly all day.
It’s a dynamic that most of Biden’s predecessors also have faced: The world abroad tends to love American presidents. Back home, not always. Not so much.
A US president’s overseas trips often offer a backdrop and substance that are difficult to replicate on home turf. Biden’s Ireland trip was heady with nostalgia, fellowship, religion and poetry – the grand sweeping hills and cozy towns fitting for just such a mood.
Biden referenced many a poet on his trip, but one in particular was particularly meaningful to him on Friday — that of his great grandfather Edward Francis Blewitt, who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. after the Blewitts set sail for the US.
“From the fairest land, except my own,” Biden read. “Neath sun, star, and moon, the citadel of liberty, my mother’s land, aroon.”
Earlier in his travels this week, Biden met with Northern Ireland leaders to mark the 25th Anniversary of the Good Friday agreement that ended sectarian violence, addressed the Irish parliament, watched Gaelic sports with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, and saw the widow of his favorite poet, Seamus Heaney. He also coincidentally met the priest who gave last rites to his late son, Beau. And he was loaded down with gifts, including a signed poetry book and a brick from his ancestral home.
“He can feel the love in a way that’s hard to do at home,” presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said. “There’s something about an American president being in your country that makes a nation’s press and public go gaga.”
“With the exception of the Pope, the American President is usually the most coveted global figure,” Brinkley said.
People watch a large screen showing President Joe Biden speaking outside St Muredach’s Cathedral, in Ballina, Ireland, on Friday, 14th April, 2023. PICTURE: AP Photo/Peter Morrison.
During Biden’s visit to Warsaw, Poland, in February, thousands of people gathered at the foot of the Royal Castle to hear the president deliver a speech on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
With the castle lit in the colors of the Ukrainian flag behind him, Biden vowed that “Democracies of the world will stand guard over freedom today, tomorrow and forever” to a rapt audience. As Biden exited the stage, he paused one more time to take in the scene, and a man in the audience bellowed out: “You’re our hero!”
When Biden spoke to the Canadian parliament in March, the chamber broke into applause 34 times. In a country in which English and French are spoken, Biden produced a thunderous round of clapping by simply opening his speech with “Bonjour, Canada.”
Even in Ireland, though, the acclaim was not universal. The small left-wing party People Before Profit vowed to boycott Biden’s speech to parliament because of opposition to US foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere.
People Before Profit lawmaker Paul Murphy said the President’s trip was being “treated as a visit by an interesting Irish-American celebrity, as opposed to a visit of the most powerful person in the world who needs to be asked hard questions about the kinds of policies that he is pursuing.”
People line the streets as President Joe Biden tours Dundalk, Ireland, on Wednesday,12th April, 2023. PICTURE: AP Photo/Patrick Semansky.
Biden is far from the only US President to find appreciation abroad that seems more elusive at home.
Then-President Bill Clinton found refuge overseas from the investigations pressing in on him at home. In his last year in office, President George W. Bush was about as well liked at home as Richard Nixon right before he resigned in scandal, according to the Pew Research Center, but he remained popular in Africa, where he boosted foreign aid and battled the AIDS epidemic.
The Irish response to Biden, though, was overwhelmingly positive for “Cousin Joe”, as many have called him. On his first day in Ireland, Biden toured County Louth, pausing at Carlingford Castle, which could well have been the last Irish landmark that Owen Finnegan, his maternal great-great-grandfather, saw before sailing for New York in 1849. As he gazed at the sea, thousands cheered to him from the streets below, mixing with the sound of bagpipes that wafted from the green hills.
“I don’t know why the hell my ancestors left here,” Biden said. “It’s beautiful.”
– With AAMER MADHANI, CHRIS MEGERIAN, JOSH BOAK AND ZEKE MILLER in Washington, DC, and JILL LAWLESS in London, UK
