Confusing rugby team with a brutal police force, taking directions from Hunter, encountering a barking dog, and mournful remembrances: The highs and lows (and gaffes) from Biden’s family tour of Ireland
- It was an emotional week for Biden on his four-day trip to his ancestral ‘home’
- He brought his son and sister on ‘personal’ trip that he laced with public events
- His final odd comment came right before he boarded Air Force One
It was the trip of a lifetime for President Biden filled with ‘hope and history’ that almost inevitably turned out to have its share of odd moments, gaffes, kisses, and tears.
Biden was determined to go on the journey back to his ancestral homeland for the first time as president, and managed to pull off a trip with obvious personal meaning for him. ‘They can’t keep me out,’ he quipped, weeks before setting off on the reverse voyage that his ancestors took more than 150 years ago.
When he got here, he could barely contain his appreciation for the place that has personal and political identity. ‘Ta me sa bhaile, I am home’ Biden said during one of many speeches, stumbling is way through a Gaelic phrase.
With an itinerary light on substance and filled with family reunions and personal encounters, it was a question of when, not if, something unplanned or unexpected would happen. Here is a rundown of some of the highlight’s of Biden’s trip: the good, the bad, and the awkward.
Rugby reference gone awry
The White House had to play clean-up after Biden muddled the Black and Tans, a British force that brutally put down Irish insurgents in the 1920s, with the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team.
Biden was speaking inside the Windsor pub and restaurant, where among his Finnegan relatives was an Irish rugby player who is a distant relation.
But while praising his rugby playing cousin, he managed to refer to the New Zealand rugby team as ‘the Black and Tans,’ the feared British security force.
‘I think for everyone in Ireland who was a rugby fan, it was incredibly clear that the president was talking about the All Blacks and Ireland’s defeat of the New Zealand team in 2016,’ said Amanda Sloat, senior National Security Director for Europe, during a morning briefing.
Then Biden took the cleanup operation further by telling the story again before the Irish parliament, and this time getting the reference right.
The slip had threatened to overshadow Biden’s cross-border activities a day earlier, when he had to walk the fine line of keeping Northern Ireland Protestant and Catholic communities happy.
Former Irish rugby union player Rob Kearney at the pub where Biden made the remark about the Black and Tans
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you
President Joe Biden received a warm welcome from Irish President Michael Higgins on Thursday, just as he did from the Irish people. Less so from his dog.
As the two leaders made their way into the grounds of the Irish president’s residence for a tree planting ceremony, Higgins tried to introduce his American counterpart to Misneach, one of his enormous Bernese Mountain dog.
But Misneach — named for the Irish word for ‘courage — was having none of it.
As Biden moved in to show it some love, the two-year-old did its best to upset U.S.-Irish relations by barking at the president and backing away.
Social media users were quick to seize on the moment, claiming Misneach only responded to commands in Irish.
Misneach, the Irish president’s Bernese Mountain dog, was unimpressed by President Joe Biden’s attempts at building U.S.-Irish relations, barking and backing off from his advances
Near miss on the ball field
President Joe Biden had a hard ball whizz not too far from his head while viewing a youth sports demonstration in Ireland – in a potential aerial the Secret Service might not have been banking on during his heavily protected trip.
The president was visiting with Irish Toiseach Leo Varadkar to see the hardball game played by Irish women and girls when the incident happened.
The two leaders stood on a corner of a field during what turned out to be the sunniest day of Biden’s four day visit, viewing the Gaelic stick and ball game of Camogie, which is a female version of Hurling.
‘A sliotar (camogie ball) wizzed right by Biden’s left shoulder, nearly striking the president,’ according to a pool reporter who was with the president Thursday.
Spectators can be heard reacting to the reasonably close call after the crack of a the wooden hurling stick.
Help from Hunter
Hunter Biden was a constant presence on his dad’s side during the trip. At one point, Biden got help from his son as he took questions from children when he arrived in Dublin on Wednesday.
On the second day of the 80-year-old’s trip to his ancestral homeland, the president told families of US Embassy staff they could ask him ‘anything’ – despite refusing to hold a press conference during his four-day trip.
Hunter corrected his father at one point when he was trying to remember if the late Sen. Jesse Helms was from North or South Carolina, and then guided him to ‘walk the rope line’ when the event wrapped up.
The president’s son, who is under federal tax investigation and under constant threats from Republicans, was alongside his father as he followed his family roots on the Emerald Isle.
‘Any of you guys want to ask me any questions?’ Biden asked the children. He then got distracted by a youngster holding a toy model of Air Force One.
Then he turned his attention back to the crowd.
‘In the back. He’s got a question,’ Hunter told his father.
Biden staged a dramatic farewell speech next to a cathedral in Ballina that could have been a campaign video
Visit to hospice that his son Beau supported
The trip featured somber notes as well. Biden made an emotional visit to a new hospice that bears his late son Beau’s name during his tour of Ireland on Friday, bringing his son Hunter and sister Valerie with him.
It was a close family moment, as they were greeted at Mayo Hospice in the west of Ireland by Laurita Blewitt, the president’s third cousin and a big fundraiser for the $10 facility.
Biden had visited in 2017 to ‘turn the sod’ at a groundbreaking ceremony but this time was able to see the plaque that carries his son’s name near the entrance.
They put their arms around each other and both Valerie Biden and Blewitt wiped tears from their eyes.
President Joe Biden visits the Mayo Roscommon Hospice in Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland, where a plaque bears his son Beau’s name.
Near tears at the Knock shrine
Biden broke down in tears during a visit to the Knock Shrine in Ireland Friday when he encountered the chaplain who had administered last rites to his late son, Beau.
The emotional moment came when the president was getting a a tour of the Irish pilgrimage site, after Biden learned that retired Army chaplain Father Frank O’Grady was now working there.
‘He was crying, it really affected him and then we said a prayer, said a decade of the rosary for his family,’ said Father Richard Gibbons.
‘He lit a candle and then he took a moment or two of private for prayer,’ Gibbons told the BBC.
‘It just so happened, that we have working at the shrine here the chaplain who gave the last rites, the last anointing, to his son in the United States,’ Gibbons told the broadcaster.
‘He got the shock of his life, to come over, so that was a wonderful spontaneous thing that happened,’ he said.
An eye-catching farewell
Biden wrapped up his trip with a spectacular farewell organized in front of St. Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina, where he spun more family stories in front of thousands of cheering Irish fans.
He recalled how one ancestor Edward Blewitt once sold 27,000 bricks that helped support St. Muredach’s Cathedral in County Mayo, where Biden arranged a speech before tens of thousands of cheering Irish fans.
‘In 1828. he was paid 21 pounds and 12 shillings to help supply bricks for this cathedral,’ Biden said of his great-great-great-great grandfather.
‘I doubt he ever imagined his great-great grandson would return 200 years later as president of the United States of America. Isn’t that amazing?’ he said.
An array of spotlights lit of the cathedral and others pierced the sky, in a dramatic staged event that foreshadowed a possible run for reelection that would again relate Biden’s personal story and connect it to the country.
It was the near final image of a trip that included memorable photo-ops, from cheering Irish fans lined up to see the president to the moment he kissed the new baby of senator Rebecca Moynihan shortly after addressing the Irish parliament.
The White House staged a spectacular farewell speech
One for the road
Biden, who doesn’t drink and so didn’t sample the island’s famed Guinness beer, couldn’t leave Ireland without one more eyebrow raising comment. Speaking to reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One to fly home, Biden got asked if he learned anything about his family, having visited a genealogy center.
He once again riffed on how the U.S. is a nation of immigrants, saying some of its hardworking spirit and taste for freedom was rooted in Ireland and other nations.
‘Look, you all came from somewhere, unlike my Secretary of Interior, but anyway …’ he said, in reference to Deb Haaland, the nation’s first native American cabinet member.
She is a member of the Pueblo tribe of Laguna, and according to the agency is a 35th generation New Mexican.
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