President Joe Biden has landed in Dublin as part of his four-day trip to Ireland. The US President will be visiting Ballina, the city of his ancestors in Mayo, Dundalk in Louth, and Dublin City over the coming days. In a key address at Ulster University, President Biden spoke about the Good Friday Agreement, 25 years since it was signed. He said: “It’s good to see Belfast, a city that’s alive with commerce, art, and I would argue inspiration. The dividends of peace are all around us. This very campus is situated in an intersection where conflict and bloodshed once held a terrible sway. The Associated Press has the story:
Joe Biden is eager to trace roots in Ireland
Newslooks- DUBLIN (AP)
President Joe Biden arrived in Dublin on Wednesday primed to trace his ancestral roots on a personal visit for a politician who cites his Irish heritage as a driving force in his life.
Biden was headed first for County Louth on Ireland’s east coast, home of his Finnegan ancestors. He was expected to tour a castle and take a walk around downtown Dundalk. The president had also intended to visit a cemetery there, but that plan was scrapped because of uncooperative weather.
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Biden’s mother’s family, the Finnegans, are from County Louth. According to a genealogy released by the White House, the president’s great-great-great-grandparents lived in Templetown and were married in 1813.
Their grandson, James Finnegan, born in 1840, emigrated to the United States with his family when he was 9 years old. The Finnegans settled in Seneca County, New York. James married Catherine Roche in 1846; they were Biden’s great-grandparents.
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During his three days in Ireland, Biden also plans to address the parliament in Dublin, attend a gala dinner and visit County Mayo, another ancestral area.
Upon his arrival in Dublin, Biden was greeted by Ireland’s prime minister at the airport and then swung by a nearby fire station, where children of U.S. Embassy employees held American and Irish flags and signs that said “welcome home.”
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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 were from the Emerald Isle, and they emigrated to the United States during the Great Famine of the mid-19th century. Biden is particularly fond of quoting Irish poetry, especially Seamus Heaney.
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Earlier Wednesday, Biden marked the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. The U.S.-brokered deal brought peace to an area of the United Kingdom where years of sectarian violence known as “the Troubles” left some 3,600 people killed in bombings and other attacks.
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But recent political turmoil has left Northern Ireland without a functioning government, rattling the foundations of the Good Friday Agreement. In addition, a top police official was shot and injured in February, an attack that authorities have blamed on Irish Republican Army dissidents opposed to the peace process.
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“The enemies of peace will not prevail,” Biden said. “Northern Ireland will not go back, pray God.”