For a small, militarily neutral country, Ireland punches well above its weight when it comes to welcoming American presidents. Eight have visited since John F. Kennedy in 1963
paternal surname was brought to the United States in the early 19th century by one William Biden, a stonemason who emigrated to Maryland from the village of Westbourne, in southern England. As far as anyone knows, Mr Biden has yet to visit. But this week he made his third pilgrimage in seven years to Ireland, the homeland of his maternal ancestors: the Blewitts of Mayo, and the Finnegans from Louth.
Ronald Reagan, who appeared to show little interest in his Irish surname before he became president, became born-again Irish after he was warmly received in 1984. Bill Clinton came to Ireland three times, although mainly on business, riding shotgun on what became the.
What is it about Ireland that makes so many presidents go all green and giddy? Electoral considerations have been a factor: in the 2021 American Community Survey, an annual poll administered by the Census Bureau, more than 30m Americans, or 9% of the population, claimed to have Irish ancestry. Yet as a voting group their allegiances have changed over the decades. Long before he went to Wexford, Kennedy was guaranteed what was then the staunchly Democratic vote of Irish-American Catholics.
One president who appears less keen to play up his links to Ireland is Donald Trump. His mother, born in the Outer Hebrides, was a native speaker of Scottish Gaelic, a language closely related to Irish and the country’s official language . But when Mr Trump visited the country in 2019 he spent most of his time at his golf resort in Clare. No Irish ancestry has been found for him—or, perhaps, none eagerly sought.
Unlike some others, Mr Biden is sincere in his love of the old country and his Irish identity, says Liam Kennedy, who researches Irish-US relations for the Clinton Institute at University College Dublin. “We have to be careful of shamrockery, or what Biden himself calls malarkey, but I think he’s the genuine article.”
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