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"A Son of Ireland" – How Joe Biden's Irish roots shaped his political identity

2023-04-11 19:52:17Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
"A Son of Ireland" – How Joe Biden's Irish roots shaped his
A poster of Joe Biden on a building in the Irish town of Ballina

When a British journalist once asked Joe Biden for an interview, the American president responded with a joke: “BBC? I'm Irish.”

The 80-year-old Biden, the second Catholic president in American history, will draw on his Irish heritage during a visit to Great Britain and Ireland this week.

The American president acts as if he has already started the presidential campaign for the 2024 elections, even though he has not officially announced his candidacy.

He wants to attract voters who dream of the American dream of immigrant success.

Thus, in the 2020 campaign, Biden recited a poem by Irish Nobel laureate poet Seamus Heaney.

When the Irish rugby team beat the mighty New Zealand All Blacks in November 2021, Biden called to congratulate them.

Although Biden has British ancestry on his father's side, he chose to emphasize his mother's.

Biden's ancestors left Ireland in the mid-19th century, when the country was ravaged by famine, and then settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

The only Irishman who doesn't drink

Biden will now go the other way.

The tour will stop in Belfast, on the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, which brought peace to Northern Ireland.

He will then go to a series of official events in Dublin.

The White House has organized some very personal visits to the land of his ancestors, as it did in 2016, when he traveled to Ireland as vice president.

Will he stop again at the bar that his family founded?

If he does, he won't order a pint of traditional beer.

"I'm the only Irishman who doesn't drink," joked Biden recently.

As the expected campaign for a new term approaches, Biden has promised to revive the "American dream" and said he will give his countrymen reason for hope and faith.

Is it better to do that than wax lyrical about his family's departure from Ireland?

"Never kneel..."

In a 2013 speech after being inducted into the Irish-American Hall of Fame, Biden evoked the family's history by praising their new country, which is full of "opportunities for those who are willing to work hard and play according to the rules".

"This is a compelling origin story that touches on America's continuing self-imagining as a land of opportunity," Coilin Parsons, director of Irish studies at Georgetown University, told AFP.

Biden's life was marked by tragedy, he lost two children and his first wife.

He also faced setbacks in his political career and often says he draws strength from two sources: his Catholic faith and family values.

On St. Patrick's Day, March 17, a national holiday in Ireland, Biden shared the advice he got from his maternal grandfather: “Joe, never submit, never kneel, never. Never, never.”

The sometimes sentimental American president's deep connection to his Irish heritage naturally also has a political dimension.

Since 1952, the Irish Prime Minister "has been able to command the time and attention of the American President by visiting the White House every year on St. Patrick's Day."

The Irish-American voice is always important

"No other country has the luxury of being able to count on that level of political access," Parsons said.

More than 30 million Americans claim Irish roots, and the Irish-American vote could still be key in elections in strategic states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, he added.

Parsons noted that Biden's trip was also designed to shine a light, though not directly, on some very current issues.

"Yes, there are shamrocks and Irish dances, but Ireland increasingly represents a different kind of history... At a time when American politics seems to be rapidly turning toward entrenched conservatism, Ireland is a country that has resisted the influence of the Catholic Church in recent years," and allowed same-sex marriage, Parsons said.

Joe Biden, although an ardent Catholic, has begun to vocally defend the right to abortion, which Catholic Ireland has opened its doors to in recent years.


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