President Biden arrived in Dublin under cover of umbrella Wednesday on the second leg of his four-day trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland.
“Real pleasure to welcome @POTUS to Dublin today. Looking forward to a good discussion in Farmleigh tomorrow after his trip to County Louth,” Ireland’s Prime Minister, or Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar tweeted upon Biden’s arrival.
Biden was headed first to the home of his maternal Finnegan ancestors County Louth on Ireland’s east coast. He was set to tour a castle there and walk through downtown Dundalk.
The President took off for Dublin following a speech earlier in the day in Belfast, Northern Ireland, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Peace Agreement, which ended thirty years of sectarian violence in the North.
During that speech at Ulster University, Biden called for a return to power sharing between the executive and the assembly.
Four of Northern Ireland’s leaders, from Irish republican Sinn Féin to British unionists, have been pushing to form a new cross-community government as the U.S.-brokered 1998 peace deal had intended.
In Belfast Biden also met with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and told Northern Irish political leaders that numerous major U.S. corporations were ready to invest in the region.
“Today’s Belfast is the beating heart of Northern Ireland and is poised to drive unprecedented economic opportunity,” Biden said in Belfast. “There are scores of major American corporations wanting to come here wanting to invest.”
From Dublin’s airport Biden traveled to a nearby fire station where children of U.S. Embassy staff held American and Irish flags and signs that said “welcome home.”
According to the Irish Family History Centre, Biden “is among the most ‘Irish’ of all U.S. Presidents.” Ten of his 16 great-great grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland during the Great Famine in the mid-1800s.
Along with the Finnegan home in County Louth, Biden is set to visit his Blewitt ancestral home in County Mayo.
