In Ireland, ‘Cousin Joe’ feels the love that’s elusive in U.S.
Admirers packed the streets for President Joe Biden on his last day in Ireland, some traveling for hours just to catch a glimpse. Pictures of his smiling face were plastered on drums and shop windows.
No wonder Biden keeps joking about sticking around.
Back home, Biden’s approval rating is near the lowest point of his presidency. And even some fellow Democrats have suggested he shouldn’t run for reelection. On trips within the U.S. to discuss his economic and social policies, Biden often gets a smattering of admirers waving as he drives by, and friendly crowds applaud his speeches. But the reception doesn’t compare with the overwhelming adoration he’s getting here in the old sod.
After stops in Northern Ireland, County Louth and Dublin, the president flew west to County Mayo on Friday, where his great-greatgrandfather Patrick Blewitt lived until he left for the United States in 1850. The locals have been abuzz for weeks with preparations, giving buildings a new coat of paint and hanging American flags from shopfronts.
“This is just a fantastic occasion for us all, for an American president to be here in Ballina,” said Howard Tracy, 52, waiting with his 13-year-old son Adam.
It’s a dynamic that most of Biden’s predecessors also have faced: The world abroad tends to love American presidents. Back home, not always. Not so much.
“With the greatest of respect, Mr. President, I must say, you sure can draw a crowd,” Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl, speaker of the lower chamber of Ireland’s parliament, said as he introduced Biden’s joint address to lawmakers on Thursday.
A U.S. president’s overseas trips often offer a backdrop and substance that are difficult to replicate on home turf. Biden’s Ireland trip has been heady with nostalgia, fellowship, religion and poetry — the grand sweeping hills and cozy towns fitting for just such a mood.
Biden, a Catholic who speaks often of his faith, stopped at Knock Shrine, a pilgrimage site where it’s said the saints Mary, Joseph and John the Evangelist appeared along a stone wall in the 1800s.
Knock parish priest Father Richard Gibbons told the BBC that Biden met with the priest who performed the last rites on Biden’s late son Beau, who died in 2015 at age 46. Father Frank O’Grady now works at the Irish shrine.
Gibbons said that the president “laughed, he cried, it just kind of hit the man, you could just (see) how deeply it all felt and meant to him.” Biden then stopped at a hospice center where there’s a plaque dedicated to Beau.
Presidential visits come with the pageantry of Air Force One landings, long motorcades and “the beast,” Biden’s limo, which other world leaders, like Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, delight in riding.
“He can feel the love in a way that’s hard to do at home,” presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said. “There’s something about an American president being in your country that makes a nation’s press and public go gaga.”
“With the exception of the pope, the American president is usually the most coveted global figure,” Brinkley said.
During Biden’s visit to Warsaw, Poland, in February, thousands of people gathered at the foot of the Royal Castle to hear the president deliver a speech on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.