Emotional trip for Joe Biden as he meets Mayo cousins in ancestral home

After losing his son last year, Joe Biden yesterday gained an Irish family.

It was an emotional day for the American vice president as he travelled back to his ancestral home in Co Mayo with members of his family — a trip he had planned with his son Beau before his death.

“My family has gotten bigger,” Mr Biden said after meeting some of his relatives for lunch in Heffernan’s bakery in Ballina. “My mother had the expression, Jean Finnegan, she would say ‘remember Joey you are defined by your courage and you are redeemed by your loyalty’, this is loyalty,” he said.