‘I’m Going Home’: Biden Tours His Irish Legacy

President Biden climbed the stone stairs of an ancient castle in the Republic of Ireland on Wednesday and paused to look out over the iron-gray Irish Sea, where his great-grandfather sailed for America in 1849.

On the ground, bagpipes hum an original song, titled “A Biden Return,” to celebrate the 80-year-old’s most recent visit to his hometown. Irish rain dripping down the president’s baseball cap.

In other words, this is Peak Joe Biden.

“Wonderful!” Mr. Biden shouted from the castle at a group of reporters. “It feels like I’m coming home.”

Biden’s ancestral tour begins later a blink trip to Belfast, Northern Irelandthe day before to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, a peace agreement that helped end sectarian violence in the region.

But neither Mr. Biden nor his senior advisers are interested in discussing ongoing political conflict in Northern Ireland or any other global issue, including the war in Ukraine.

Instead, the president turns his gaze to the past — specifically to his Irish heritage, which has shaped his public identity and political views.

“In my view, the Irish are the only people in the world who are truly nostalgic for the future,” Biden said. “Think about it. That’s because, more than anything in my experience, hope is what beats in everyone’s heart, especially the Irish’s. Expect. Every action is about hope.

Mr. Biden came here to learn more about his relationship with the Finnegan and Blewitt families, his maternal surname from County Louth and County Mayo, whose descendants settled near Scranton, Pa. (Ballina of County Mayo, Mr. Biden pointed out Wednesday, is a sister city by Scranton.)

Those Finnegans and Blewitts raised a future American president on a regular diet filled with family lore, Irish poetry, and a puzzling sense of pride: “’Remember, Joey, the good drop of blood. My best friend is Irish,’” he said his grandfather told him as a child.

His family identity is central to his legacy, but it is also at times his greatest political weakness.

Hunter Biden, the president’s 53-year-old son, whose financial transactions were the subject of an investigation by the House Oversight Committee, traveled to Ireland with his father on Air Force One, even as party members Popular Republicans in the United States criticize the president for taking the trip in the first place.

In an interview on Fox News on Tuesday night, former President Donald J. Trump accused his successor of not caring about world affairs.

“The world is exploding around us,” Trump said. “You could end up in a third world war and this guy would be in Ireland.”

If the criticism reaches Mr. Biden’s ears, he will not let it out. In the days leading up to the trip, the White House raised a number of questions about who would accompany him, for how long and at what cost. Officials say Mr Biden is upholding the tradition of presidents, from Kennedy to Obama, who have made similar trips before.

In the end, Mr. Biden kept the family team leaner than the group that accompanied him on a six-day tour of Ireland as vice president in 2016, according to aides. While in County Louth, Mr. Biden toured the Kilwirra Church and Cemetery, where several of his ancestors were baptized, and stopped for lunch with relatives, including several grandchildren, at the Restaurant and Bar. Fitzpatrick’s wine. He visited Lily Finnegan’s Tavern, which officials said was at one point owned by several distant relatives.

According to Elizabeth Alexander, Biden’s communications director, one notable person was absent this time: First Lady Jill Biden, who stayed because she had to teach. Biden doesn’t always attend Biden family outings, including her husband’s 2016 visit.

As Mr. Biden left Washington for his latest trip, he told reporters he had decided to take “two members of my family who had never been there before.” The president’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens – who visited Ireland with Mr Biden in 2016 – also made the trip.

The siblings are so proud of their Irish heritage that, when Mr. Biden was a candidate for vice president, Mrs. Biden Owens lobbied on his behalf for the Secret Service to change its code-setting protocol. the people it protects. Mr. Biden was supposed to start with a “K,” but his sister convinced officials to use a name associated with his Irish heritage: Celtic.

Shailagh Murray, a former senior adviser to Mr Biden, said: “For President Biden, Ireland is more than just where his ancestors lived – it’s ingrained in his identity. “His Irish character is intertwined with his faith, his intense devotion to his family and his empathy for those in need.”

On Wednesday, Biden Owens and Hunter followed the president as he toured a fireplace, a pub and a snack bar. At one point, Hunter held an umbrella to shield his father from the rain.

At an earlier meeting with US Embassy staff, he told Mr. Biden, “Dad, you have to make ropes,” referring to supporters who had lined up to greet the president.

“I have to make ropes?” asked his father.

“Just to say hello to everyone,” Hunter replied.

Kate Bedingfield, former communications director for Mr Biden, said: “Being back as president and seeing a warm response from his family’s hometown people has probably felt like a moment. full of power to the Biden family.”

Mr Biden’s sister Hunter, distant relatives and friends joined a friend meeting through the Irish countryside as Mr Biden’s motorcade made its way from Dublin to Dundalk. At Carlingford Castle in County Louth, the president had a tour with former professional rugby player Rob Kearney, his fifth cousin once removed, and with Michael Martin, secretary of state and Minister of Defense of Ireland.

Perhaps no modern president has embraced his Irish-American lineage as enthusiastically as Mr. Biden. “Do you know who designed the White House? An Irishman!” he said proudly during a speech at Ulster University in Belfast earlier in the day.

Pride in his heritage has instilled in him since childhood, when his father, Joseph R. Biden Sr., ran into financial difficulties and moved the whole family to his maternal grandfather’s house – a house crowded with Finnegans and Blewitts. They are loyal, proud Catholics who hold grudges.

In his memoir, Mr. Biden wrote that one of his aunts approached him and told him that it was not personal for them to like his father. “Your father is not a bad person,” Biden wrote that his aunt Gertie had told him. “He’s just British. But he is a good man.”

As president, Mr. Biden used a modest moniker to sign the letters, call yourself “son of Catherine Eugenia Biden,” referring to a mother who instructed her Catholic son never to kneel before the queen of England.

At various times on Wednesday, Mr. Biden indulged in a kind of lore dedicated to him: lengthy and sometimes rosy memories of the Senate. When a child asked what the key to success was, Mr. Biden recounted – within minutes – how, as a young senator, he didn’t like the views of Senator Jesse Helms, whom he said to be “not very crazy about African-Americans.”

He said he later learned it was important not to question people’s motives when he found out that Mr Helms had adopted a special needs child.

“If you question their motives, you’ll never be able to agree,” Biden said.

The next person asked how the president’s dogs were.

“Good job,” Biden replied. (Only one presidential dog.)

The President ends his day in the wood-paneled dining room of Windsor Bar and Restaurant in Dundalk, surrounded by distant relatives. As he spoke, he asked Hunter to stand for a round of applause.

“When you’re here,” Biden said, looking around the room, “you wonder why anyone would want to leave.”