This week, from the 11th to the 14th of April, the US President will visit our wonderful shores of Ireland. He will be the 9th sitting US President to visit us and he also holds great ties with Ireland. Mr Biden is visiting to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, with the trip set to take in Belfast, Dublin, Mayo and Louth in the Boyne Valley. The 45th US president's family ancestry can be traced back to Ballina, Co Mayo, and the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth.
In 2016, when he was then vice president, Mr Biden visited the Boyne Valley and some of its most outstanding heritage sites including the 5000 year old passage tombs of Brú na Bóinne.
(Photo: Arthur Carron, via Irish Independent)
Following his visit to Newgrange, Mr. Biden continued on to County Louth to tour Kilwirra church and cemetery near the beautiful coastal village of Carlingford. According to the Irish Times, Mr. Biden has ancestral roots in Co. Mayo and Co Louth from where his antecedents, his great-great-great grandfather Edward Blewitt and great-great grandfather Owen Finnegan, emigrated respectively during the Great Famine.
This year, President Biden is set to visit Carlingford in County Louth once again as well as the town of Dundalk. Speaking to media, Louth County Council said: "There is expected to be high security in operation and people are being advised not to carry bags of any sort, as is normal in such circumstances. Residents and visitors are very welcome to attend and celebrate the historic occasion of a US President coming back to visit his ancestral county."
After his visit in 2016, Mr Biden was awarded the Freedom of Co Louth. He remains the only individual to hold this honour.
President Biden is not the Boyne Valleys only famous descendant.
Maureen O’Hara
The father of famous actress Maureen O’Hara was from Kells in County Meath. Charles Fitzsimons was born to farming folk outside Kells. Her father's real passion was soccer. He played Gaelic football until he was caught at a soccer match once and he was kicked off the team. He later bought into Shamrock Rovers. The actress often returned to Kells in later years to visit her uncle Frank, a blacksmith on Farrell Street, and meet her many relations.
John Boyle O’Reilly
Image
John Boyle O'Reilly was born in Dowth Castle, County Meath, Ireland, on June 28, 1844, close to the passage tomb of Dowth. He was the son of William David O'Reilly and Eliza Boyle O'Reilly.
Ireland was at that time a part of the United Kingdom; many Irish people bitterly resented British rule and there was a strong nationalist movement. O'Reilly's family was fiercely patriotic, and his mother was closely related to John Allen, who had played an important role in Robert Emmet's abortive rising in 1803.
The career of John Boyle O'Reilly was more romantic than fiction and had in it all the essentials of drama. He entered journalism at Drogheda Co. Louth, a town near his birthplace, and threw the influence of his fiery pen into the cause of Irish revolt. The Fenian Society sent him to England as an agent, but he was speedily arrested and condemned to death, a sentence which was at the last moment commuted to penal servitude in Australia.
After enduring this for a year he escaped in a boat and was picked up by an American whaling vessel and finally landed at Philadelphia, USA. This was in 1869 when O'Reilly was only twenty-five years old. From this time to his death, which occurred in the prime of his powers, he was a great force in the movement for justice to Ireland and through the Boston Pilot, which he edited for many years, he championed not only all liberal movements for his native, but also for his adopted country. He was greatly beloved for his winning personality and his fervid Irish temperament, and at his death a statue by Daniel Chester French was erected to him in Boston.
There is no doubt that the Boyne Valley will continue to produce sons and daughters that will go on to achieve great things across the water. We are delighted to claim President Biden as one of our own and hope to see him in on our fair isle again soon.
To keep up to date with all our news and special offers just sign up to our newsletter here.
