How Irish is Joe Biden? US President traces his roots back to County Louth and County Mayo

Joe Biden has been hailed as “unmistakably a son of Ireland” – despite being born in Pennsylvania – while the US president’s boasting of his Irish heritage has often been accompanied by “anti-British” scorn.

The Democrat politician has often sparked controversy with off-the-cuff remarks as he attempted to demonstrate his fierce pride in his ‘Irishness’.

The 80-year-old, whose parents were also both born in the US, was previously heavily criticized for a joke that “anyone who wears orange” is not welcome in his home.

He has also turned down a chance to speak to the BBC in the past because he is ‘Irish’, hinting that he was embarrassed that both his father and surname were of English origin.

As late as last year, Mr Biden claimed his father’s ‘saving grace’ was that he also had Irish ancestry, as well as connections to Westbourne, West Sussex.

Mr. Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but can trace his roots back to County Louth and County Mayo in the Republic of Ireland.

Biden will visit both this week on his tour of the country, which will follow his swift trip to Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

His connections to Ireland come mainly from his maternal side with his great great grandfather Edward Blewitt having grown up in Ballina, Co. mayo.

Blewitt emigrated to Scranton after the Irish potato famine of the 1840s.

Another great-great-grandfather of the US president, Owen Finnegan, was a cobbler from Co. Louth who emigrated to America in 1849.

His family, including Mr. Biden’s great-grandfather, James Finnegan, succeeded him in 1850.

The US president has previously revealed how his English father, Joseph Biden Snr., had the “saving grace” of also being of Irish descent.

Mr Biden said last year: ‘He had the saving grace, on his mother’s side, of having a Hanafee from Galway.

That’s the only thing that saved him. And you all think I’m joking. I am not.’

It was not the first time Mr Biden has hinted at a familial embarrassment about his father’s English heritage.

Rather, he recalled his aunt telling him when he was young, “Your father is not a bad man. He’s just English.’

Mr Biden has also spoken in the past about the discomfort of Biden being an English surname, revealing that ‘my grandfather and my mother were never crazy about it being an English surname’.

Last year it emerged that Biden had once revealed that his mother Jean disliked England so much that she chose to sleep on the floor rather than in a bed the Queen had previously slept in.

British screenwriter Georgia Pritchett claimed that the US president made the revelation when they met at the White House during his stint as vice president.

She wrote in her autobiography how Mr Biden remembered his mother visiting the UK and spending the night in a hotel where Jean was told the Queen had once stayed.

“She was so horrified that she slept on the floor all night, rather than risk sleeping on a bed the Queen had slept on,” Pritchett wrote.

During his long political career, the US president has made a series of risky jokes at times when he proudly displayed his Irish heritage.

During a 2012 meeting with then Prime Minister David Cameron while he was vice president, Mr Biden jokingly offered a message to Amrbose Finnegan, his grandfather, that “things have changed” when he sat down with a British leader .

In 2015, Biden drew fierce criticism after he joked while welcoming then-Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny to his home, “Anyone wearing orange isn’t welcome.”

Northern Ireland’s mainly Protestant Unionist community associates with the color in celebration of William of Orange’s victory over Catholic forces at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

When he was president-elect after winning the 2020 US election, Mr Biden turned down an opportunity to speak to a BBC reporter, telling them: ‘The BBC? I’m Irish.’

At an event at the White House last month to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, Biden was described by current Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar as “unmistakably a son of Ireland.”

He said, “Every US president is a little Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, but some are more Irish than others.

“I think it’s fair to say that today we celebrate our National Day with a president who is undeniably a son of Ireland.”

Biden used the event to quote a poem by his great-great-grandfather Edward Blewitt.

The US president told the audience of his ancestor, “He had an engineering degree from Lafayette College and the heart of an Irish poet.

‘In 1919, in one of the more than 100 poems I found in my — when my mother died, in her treasures, he wrote of “his Ireland.”

“In one stanza he wrote: ‘Of the fairest land, save mine, Neath sun, star, and moon, the citadel of Liberty, My mother’s land, aroon.'”