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In Joe Biden’s ancestral Irish hometown, distant relatives and supporters fed happy hangovers on Sunday after an evening dedicated to toasting the success of the newly elected president, claiming credit for “saving the world.”
“It was like watching a thriller on Netflix or something, it just went on and on and suddenly yesterday it hit us out of nowhere,” Biden’s third cousin Laurita Blewitt told AFP.
“We are absolutely excited and can’t really put it into words,” said the 37-year-old.
Biden’s heritage has been described by experts as “roughly five-eighths Irish” and its roots run deep in Ballina, a city of 10,000 on Ireland’s west coast.
His great-great-grandfather Edward Blewitt left for New York in 1851, part of the diaspora fleeing Ireland’s extreme poverty and famines of the time, leaving expanding family ties.
– In the footsteps of JFK –
A distance of thousands of miles (kilometers) between Ballina and the White House has not diminished Biden’s ties to Ireland.
Prime Minister Micheal Martin was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Biden, ignoring President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of electoral negligence.
“Joe Biden is the most Irish president since John F. Kennedy,” he told state broadcaster RTE on Saturday.
He hailed the opportunity to “reestablish” relations between the United States and the European Union at a time when Britain is exiting the EU, much to Biden’s chagrin.
In the run-up to the election, innkeeper Padraig “Smiler” Mitchell was among the crowd of local artists to erect a towering pop art portrait of the future 46th president in the city, which Biden has visited twice before.
“I think Ballina saved the world last night, because without Ballina there would be no Biden,” he said as locals gathered in the shadow of his work Sunday morning.
Some grabbed newspapers with historical headlines, while others posed for photos.
On Main Street, a man shuffled sporting an oversized Biden badge after a car tangled in red, white and blue tinsel passed by.
“Today we’re just waiting for Donald to move on, get out of there,” added Mitchell, a registered American voter who cast his vote for Biden by mail.
– ‘Hope and history rhyme’ –
Biden has previously said that when he dies, “Northeast Pennsylvania will be written on my heart.”
“But Ireland will be written on my soul.”
The feeling is mutual for Ballina residents.
Despite an ongoing coronavirus lockdown in Ireland, they graced the city with his name and likeness, declaring him “Ballina’s best president, Biden.”
Closed bars and shops were covered with “Biden / Harris” signs, honoring the Democrat’s longtime running mate, Kamala Harris.
Locals processed for a caravan before gathering by the mural to view the results on a projected screen Tuesday night.
Like the United States and the rest of the world, they faced a tempting wait for US networks to announce the result, but began celebrating anyway earlier on Saturday.
“We said, ‘Let’s make the call before CNN,'” Mitchell said, beaming.
Champagne corks were opened before the mural in a socially estranged gathering, before locals returned home to cheer in private.
“If Covid wasn’t here, we would have had a proper party,” Mitchell said.
At home, those who saw RTE’s main evening bulletin recalled the intimacy between Biden and Ireland.
The program ended with a recording of the president-elect reading the words of the Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney: “Once in a lifetime / The longed-for tidal wave / From justice may rise / And hope and history rhyme.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated channel.)
