Ballina in rugged County Mayo is where the next US President’s great-great-great-grandfather – Edward Blewitt – made the decision to emigrate to America during the Great Famine.
Decked out in the famous stars and stripes in anticipation of his success, and with a mural of Biden standing in the centre of the town, the President-elect’s Irish relatives and supporters led the local energetic but socially distanced celebrations as news of his election victory filtered through.
With Ballina twinned with Biden’s birthplace of Scranton, Pennsylvania, residents in the west of Ireland town are now confident that, when circumstances allow, their native son will return to his Irish home as President of the United States of America.
Often referencing poet Seamus Heaney in his speeches, the soon-to-be President is immensely proud of his Irish roots and has spoken about his heritage on numerous occasions, once saying that “Ireland will be written on my soul”.
During an official visit to Ireland in the last months of his term as US-Vice President, Mr Biden explored his family connections in Ballina and in County Louth on the east coast of the island, from where his great-grandfather, James Finnegan, emigrated as a child in 1850.
Returning to Mayo in 2017, he turned the sod on a hospice in Castlebar, the county’s first, which has a plaque honouring his son Beau, who died in 2015. “I don’t know why my family left here in the first place,” he said to much laughter at the time.