Biden “At Home” In Ireland

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

LONDON/DUBLIN (Worthy News) – Saying “I’m at home,” U.S. President Joe Biden addressed Ireland’s parliament Thursday, a day after he said that Northern Ireland must “not go back” to the violence that scarred it for years.

Biden observes the 25th anniversary of a U.S.-brokered peace deal that ended decades of clashes in Northern Ireland between Protestant groups seeking to stay with Britain and Catholics fighting for reunification with Ireland.

Some 3,500 people are believed to have died in the violence and related bombings in Britain.

Speaking of the economic growth Northern Ireland has experienced since the Good Friday Agreement ended 30 years of sectarian bloodshed, Biden said: “It’s up to us to keep this going.”

Speaking to a packed Irish parliament, he said the story of Irish immigrants setting sail for the U.S. is at the very heart of “what binds Ireland and America together.”

“Like so many countries around the world, though perhaps more than most, the United States was shaped by Ireland,” Biden said in an address to a joint sitting of the Oireachtas in Leinster House. “And the values we share remain to this day the core of the historic partnership between our people and our governments.”

ECONOMIC TIES

Biden stressed the importance of economic ties, a Fearghaíl, a united front on the war in Ukraine, and a shared urgency to manage climate change.

Biden addressed parliament as part of his four-day trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland, where he also met with political leaders and took a whirlwind tour of his ancestral homeland.

Separately in Dublin, he participated in a tree planting ceremony and ringing of the PeaceBell.

It marked a day full of activities for Biden in Ireland as he highlighted his Irish Catholic roots.

Earlier on his first presidential visit across the border to Northern Ireland, Biden dangled the prospect of more American investment to help fuel economic growth.

That could happen if Belfast’s fractious politicians resolve a stalemate that has paused their government.

“The simple truth is that peace and economic opportunity go together,” Biden added during a speech at Ulster University’s new campus in Belfast. He said the glass-clad downtown building would have been unthinkable during the years of bombings and shootings known as “The Troubles.”

“Where barbed wire once sliced up the city, today we find a cathedral of learning, built of glass,” he said.

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