An Overjoyed Biden in Ireland Stops Just Short of 2024 Announcement
(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden’s return to Ireland unleashed a wellspring of reflection and parable, even for a man prone to both. And while he stopped short of an announcement, the lessons of Ireland hang over his next decision: a bid for reelection next year at age 81.
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His trip saw perfunctory formal events overshadowed by a more personal schedule — visits to touchstones of the Biden family history, steeped in themes of Irish rise, struggle and ritual. Yet the pomp and circumstance also ceded international attention to the most damaging and embarrassing US intelligence leak in a decade, one that the president sought to downplay and that culminated in an arrest Thursday.
Still, it was a homecoming in which a clearly overjoyed Biden saw more adoring crowds than he typically gets in America, where his popularity is middling and rooted more to his stewardship and the contrast he makes with his predecessor than adoration.
Biden, who regularly says he plans to run again, stopped after a tree planting with the Irish president to reflect on his roots in the country, and those of his former boss, Barack Obama.
“The idea that they both would seek a new life and think that their great-great-grandsons would end up being president of the United States is remarkable,” Biden said, adding with a grin, “but that’s the Irish of it.”
The Bidens’ path to America, and eventually the White House, began with modest origins – the Blewitts of County Mayo, the Finnegans of County Louth, and an English ancestor who carried the Biden name.
His lineage is mixed enough that Biden adjusted his story as he navigated a standoff in Northern Ireland’s devolved assembly and British complaints that he is too Irish to properly tend to the so-called US-UK “Special Relationship.”
Visiting Belfast in the North, he played up his UK ancestry, citing a “stout British captain in his quarters with a big bulldog sitting next to him,” an Englishman named George Biden; later, when in the Republic of Ireland, he leaned heavily into Irish lore, retelling the story without the bulldog and joking that “Biden” was, instead, Dutch.
The trip, however, exposed one of Biden’s key vulnerabilities: that he’s a gaffe-prone campaigner, a risk that runs hotter with age. Biden at one point meant to congratulate Ireland’s rugby team for its defeat of New Zealand’s powerful All Blacks in 2016; instead, he said they “beat the hell out of the Black and Tans,” a notorious British paramilitary group that fought the Irish a century ago.
A day later, Biden mopped up the misstep, almost yelling “All Blacks” when recounting the victory as the crowd applauded in good humor.
The president walked a fine line, as some critics accused him of being anti-British, or too Irish. In Northern Ireland’s thorny politics, that makes it harder to play the role of broker because one side — the unionists loyal to London — suspect his heart lies with nationalists seeking a united Ireland.
In London, Biden was criticized for making only a cursory, tightly secured stop in Northern Ireland before crossing the border to meet crowds in the streets of Dundalk later that day. A photo op with Rishi Sunak in which Biden sat silently while the British prime minister sipped from his cup fueled talk of coolness between them. Both the White House and Downing Street dismissed suggestions of discord.
Their Wednesday meeting occurred as the US was closing in on the arrest of a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman in connection with the leak of highly classified documents including maps, intelligence updates and the assessment of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The White House said Sunak and Biden didn’t discuss the leak.
Biden was briefed on the arrest, the White House said Thursday.
British concerns about Biden’s Irishness reflect insecurity about the UK’s waning influence, especially after Brexit, which robbed the UK-US relationship of a direct line into the European Union.
Addressing the Irish Parliament, Biden said he and the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, had discussed how the US, Ireland, UK and European Union could together support the people of Northern Ireland.
“The United Kingdom should be working closer with Ireland,” he said, a comment certain to rankle unionists and Biden’s critics in London.
Still, his visit was broadly welcomed by officials, some of whom expressed relief he had come at all, given the tensions over Brexit and Northern Ireland, only recently soothed by a new UK-EU deal.
Biden spent his trip celebrating an Irish heritage he’s long embraced — and one shared by significant voting blocs in crucial US swing states.
“It feels like home,” he said. “I know why my ancestors and why many of your ancestors left during the famine, but when you’re here, you wonder why anybody would want to leave.”
The owner of McAteers food shop in Dundalk casually called him “Joe,” as did dozens of Irish fans who lined the streets calling out for him.
Biden brought family with him, including his embattled son, Hunter Biden, who is sparing in his public appearances and whose business dealings and private life are a target for Republicans in the US. Biden was undeterred. “Stand up, guys, I’m proud of ya,” he said to both Hunter and Valerie Biden, the president’s sister, at one stop at a pub.
In Ireland, he rang Ireland’s unity bell, commemorating the Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to much of the sectarian violence in the North, a full four times. “This is for my Irish ancestors,” he said.
On Friday, Biden visited The Sanctuary of Our Lady Knock, a Catholic pilgrimage site, where he touched a wall where locals say they saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1879. Biden was gifted a piece of the original gable where the apparition is said to have appeared. He also stopped at a hospice, where a plaque honors his late son, Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer. Biden had visited the site in 2017 for a ground-breaking ceremony.
Later, he’s expected to speak at a County Mayo cathedral whose pillars were constructed by bricks sold by a distant relative. Excited villagers are planning a carnival-like greeting, with food trucks and musical performances.
St. Patrick’s Day events in Washington have offered windows into Irish themes imprinted on Biden as he weighs his 2024 decision. He has recalled his father’s advice.
“Joey, as long as you’re alive, you have an obligation to strive, and you’re not dead until you have seen the face of God,” Biden recalled hearing. “Never give up.”
It’s with those lessons that Biden — a proud, occasionally stubborn Irish Catholic from Scranton, Pennsylvania — weighs whether to try to extend his time in office. He has essentially cleared the Democratic field and watched as former President Donald Trump – the man that Biden allies privately say he would most easily beat — storms a path to the Republican nomination.
Biden has begun letting slip the makings of a potential campaign slogan: “finish the job.” It’s a phrase that also has roots in the rolling emerald hills his family left behind more than a century ago. St. Patrick’s Day, he recalled, is a time to share stories and Irish poetry, and “recommit ourselves to the unfinished work that lies ahead of all of us.”
At the Irish Parliament, Jerry Buttimer, the speaker of the upper chamber, noted Biden’s political ambitions.
“We might say four more years, Mr. President, but we can’t be political here.”
--With assistance from Morwenna Coniam and Stuart Biggs.
(Updates to add details on Biden events Friday in 24th paragraph)
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