Excitement is building in Ballina, a small Irish town that was home to some of President Joe Biden's ancestors.
, with a stop in Ballina, the town from which one of his great-great grandfathers left for the United States in 1850. Blewitt, a distant cousin who first met Biden when he came to town as vice president in 2016, said the U.S. leader pledged to return once he'd won the presidency.
“He’s a people person. He loves meeting the Irish people,” said Blewitt, who shares Biden’s high forehead — he says people joke that he looks like the president “from the mouth up.”Buildings are getting a new coat of paint and American flags are being hung from shopfronts in Ballina, a bustling agricultural town of about 10,000 at the mouth of the River Moy in western Ireland that proclaims itself the nation's “salmon capital.
The White House says Biden will visit Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Tuesday and Wednesday to mark 25 years since the, before heading south to the Republic of Ireland, where he will address the Dublin parliament. In Ballina, he’s due to deliver a speech Friday in front of the 19th-century cathedral, which local lore says was built partly using bricks supplied by his great-great-great grandfather, Edward Blewitt, a brickmaker and civil engineer.
“There’s a great sense of euphoria around the place. Everyone is asking ‘What’s happening, when’s he coming, where’s he going?’” said Andrea McKevitt, a local politician and distant Biden relative. “My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas, and I’ve come home to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way,” he joked to a crowd in Dublin.
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Biden's ancestral hometowns prepare warm Irish welcomeExcitement is building in Ballina, a small Irish town that was home to some of President Joe Biden's ancestors. Biden is scheduled to visit the town next week, part of a four-day trip to Ireland and neighboring Northern Ireland. The Irish Family History Centre says Biden “is among the most ‘Irish’ of all U.S. Presidents,” with 10 of his 16 great-great grandparents born on the Emerald Isle. All of them left for the U.S. during the Great Famine. He plans to visit two Irish spots connected to his roots. One is Ballina in western Ireland, where his great-great grandfather, Patrick Blewitt, was born. Distant cousin Joe Blewitt says it will be “like another St. Patrick’s Day” when the president arrives.
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Biden's ancestral hometowns prepare warm Irish welcomeExcitement is building in Ballina, a small Irish town that was home to some of President Joe Biden's ancestors.
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Biden's Ancestral Hometowns Prepare Warm Irish WelcomeExcitement is building in Ballina, a small Irish town that was home to some of President Joe Biden's ancestors.
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Biden’s ancestral hometowns prepare warm Irish welcomeJoe Blewitt is just about the busiest man in Ballina. His phone rings constantly with calls from locals and the world's media as he prepares to welcome a relative - U.S. President Joe Biden.
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