In County Louth the 80-year-old will dive into the Irish ancestry of which he is immensely proud and speaks about often.
BELFAST, Northern Ireland — President Joe Biden embarked Tuesday on a journey of diplomatic and family celebration, highlighting the U.S. role of 25 years ago in ending deadly bloodshed in Northern Ireland while catching up with distant relatives in the Republic of Ireland. It’s his first trip back as America’s president.
Deep divisions remain over the conflict’s legacy, and U.K. authorities in March raised the terrorism threat level in Northern Ireland to “severe,” warning of IRA dissidents opposed to the peace process and Biden will hold separate meetings Thursday in Dublin with Irish President Michael Higgins and Prime Minister Leo Varadkar before the address to Parliament and a dinner banquet. The president will spend Friday, the final day of the trip, in County Mayo, exploring family genealogy and giving a speech about ties between the U.S.
The Northern Ireland Assembly has not sat for more than a year, after the main unionist party pulled out of the government to protest new trade rules for Northern Ireland brought in after Brexit., addresses some of the issues that arose around commerce and goods sent across the Irish Sea from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. Biden has praised the framework as an important step in maintaining the peace, though Northern Ireland’s political leaders have called for changes.
“This is a real success, 25 years later, of U.S. diplomacy, where the U.S. was asked and then played a very critical role in bridging the divide between two of its friends and partners,” Bergmann said in an interview. “I think this is a moment to mark that progress can happen in the world and the United States can play a central role in it.”, from which one of the president’s great-great-grandfathers left for the United States in 1850.
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