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Joe Biden’s ancestral home in the west of Ireland celebrated his victory with champagne, Guinness, flags and a declaration that it was now Bidenland.
Ballina, a county Mayo city near the Atlantic coast, toasted the president-elect of the United States as a native son on Saturday night and early Sunday after he defeated Donald Trump.
Families gathered under Biden’s pop art-style mural in Market Square to clink glasses and express relief that Blewitt didn’t screw it up. The Democrat is the great-great-grandson of Edward Blewitt, who immigrated to the United States after the famine of 1840 and settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
“The count went on and on and on and it finally happened. We are excited, delighted, ”said Joe Blewitt, 41, a plumber who is Biden’s third cousin.
He had endorsed his relative during the campaign with a sign on his truck: “Joe Biden for the White House, Joe Blewitt for his house,” which spread on social media, prompting abuse by some Trump supporters in the United United.
Blewitt praised Biden’s victory speech in Delaware, more than 3,000 miles west of Ballina, as conciliatory and presidential. “It was brilliant. You can see that he is a president, as if he is standing there. It was about people who didn’t vote for him, which is correct. “
Biden has expressed pride in his Irish roots (another branch of his family came from County Louth) and visited Ireland many times, meeting relatives whom he later welcomed in the U.S. He turned the lawn into a hospice in Ballina, which has a plaque in honor of his son Beau, who died in 2015.
Villagers erected flags, balloons and posters of Biden and Kamala Harris from the United States and Ireland last week in anticipation of a party. It began Saturday night when the television networks declared Democrats on their way to the White House.
A speaker played Biden’s campaign song, Bruce Springsteen’s We Take Care of Our Own, and a cherry red 1957 Buick Electra coupe cruised through Market Square to create an extra-American vibe. A cartel declared Ballina the newest state in America.
“We’re thrilled, it was a bit surreal,” said Laurita Blewitt, 37, a fourth cousin who helped gather the clan for lunch when Biden visited him in 2016.
He spoke with the president-elect’s brother and nephew on Sunday, he said. “Everyone was excited and exhausted.” Ballina looks forward to welcoming Biden during his four-year tenure.
JFK started the tradition of US presidents exploring family roots on their visits to Ireland, a precedent followed by Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and even Barack Obama, who visited Moneygall in County Offaly in 2011. One station The nearby freeway service was named Barack Obama Plaza in his honor. Ballina residents said they hoped to find a grander way to honor Biden, but have yet to decide how.
Meanwhile, in the county Clare village of Doonbeg, it was speculated that the outgoing president might be bending over on his golf course to lick his wounds. There is a kind of precedent. After losing a referendum and resigning the French presidency in 1969, Charles de Gaulle sought reassurance in Sneem, County Kerry, for six weeks.
