A good few US Presidents have returned to visit their ancestral homes, receiving amazing welcomes from officials, locals and multitudes of well-wishers alike.
Among them was J.F. Kennedy, who was the first sitting US President to visit Ireland back in 1963. Over the course of his four-day visit he stopped in Dublin, Wexford, Cork, Galway and Limerick.
Barack Obama also found his Irish connections and came to the village of Moneygall in County Offaly in 2011. “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 quipped.
And during a visit to his ancestral village of Ballyporeen in County Tipperary in 1984, Ronald Reagan became the first US President to sample a pint of the black stuff in public. The locals were so pleased they renamed the bar after him.
EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum reveals much more about the 23 US Presidents with Irish heritage and how they ended up taking on one of the most powerful jobs in the world, with the attraction’s Leading Change gallery now featuring the genealogy of President Biden.
Located on the banks of the River Liffey in Dublin’s Docklands, the original point of departure for many emigrants, the all-interactive, fully digitised and must-see museum illustrates the huge influence Irish people have had not just on world politics, but in sport, music, dance, creativity, charity, science and more.
www.ireland.com