'It’s a 200-year-old brick': Biden presented with memento from family’s ancestral home
Blewitt brick. Biden in Ballina
US president Joe Biden has received a physical piece of his family’s past at a heritage centre in Co Mayo.
He was presented with a brick recovered from the site of his family’s ancestral home in Ballina.
On his final day of engagements in Ireland, he visited the North Mayo Heritage and Genealogical Centre to learn more about his Irish roots.
Ten of the president’s 16 great-great-grandparents are believed to hail from Ireland, and while he has links in Co Louth, those with Co Mayo are believed to be the strongest through the Blewitt family.
Patrick Blewitt, from Ballina, left the country during the Irish famine in 1850 to sail to America, like many others, for a new life.
Musicians, including a harpist and fiddle player, struck up as Mr Biden entered a garden at the centre with his son Hunter and sister Valerie Biden Owens.
The president was presented with a brick from the former Blewitt family home in Ballina enclosed in a case by Ernie Caffrey who owns a store near the site.
Mr Biden said “it’s a 200-year-old brick” as he read an inscription on the case, adding: “That’s incredible.”
He walked through an archway in a stone wall and along a path lined with trees to a driveway where a group of people were assembled by a sign with a painting of the president at a lectern in front of a cathedral.
“President Ballina, Co Mayo, Ireland,” it read.
Greeting those assembled, he commented “Oh I was in your bar” to one man.
Mr Biden met his cousins from the area ahead of his address in Ballina on Friday evening.
US president Joe Biden has visited a plaque in memory of his late son and met a distant cousin on the final day of his tour of Ireland.
Mr Biden travelled by motorcade to the Mayo Roscommon Hospice and Palliative Care Centre on Friday afternoon, with people lining the streets and waving at the president as he made his way.
Alongside his son Hunter Biden and sister Valerie Biden Owens, he was greeted by several people outside the centre, including distant cousin Laurita Blewitt.
Mr Biden keeps in close contact with the Blewitt family, who attended the White House St Patrick’s Day receptions in 2022 and 2023.
The president and Ms Blewitt, who works with the hospice, spoke for several minutes.
During his visit to the hospice, the president looked at a plaque installed at the entrance to the centre, commemorating his son Beau Biden who died of brain cancer in 2015.
In 2017, the president attended the site’s ground-breaking and sent a video greeting when it opened in November 2021.
The president also met briefly with the hospice’s chief executive Martina Jennings, Blewitt relatives and hospice board members and employees before departing.
Mr Biden returned to his ancestral roots as he embarked on a visit to the west of Ireland to round off his four-day trip.
He arrived at Knock Shrine shortly before 3pm and was met by cheering crowds waving Ireland, US and Mayo flags.
Mr Biden toured the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Knock – a Catholic pilgrimage site that has been visited by popes, most recently by Pope Francis in 2018.
Inside the basilica, Mr Biden shared a joke with parish priest Father Richard Gibbons, before gazing upon some of the artwork.
At one point, the US president broke down in tears after an emotional unplanned meeting with a priest who gave the last rites to his son.
Fr Gibbons, told the BBC the chaplain who performed the last rites sacrament on Mr Biden’s son, Beau, now works at the Knock shrine in Co Mayo where the president paid a visit on Friday.
Fr Frank O’Grady performed the ceremony for Beau Biden before he died of brain cancer in 2015.
Fr Gibbons told the BBC: “He laughed, he cried, it just kind of hit the man, you could just see how deeply it all felt and meant to him.
“It was an extraordinary afternoon. I won’t forget it, I can tell you that it was quite something else.”
The visit – which comes after his trip to Co Louth on Wednesday where some of his ancestry has been traced to – tracks the other side of Mr Biden’s family tree.
The president has repeatedly spoken with passion about his Irish heritage and described addressing the Dáil on Thursday as “one of the great honours of my career”.
Mr Biden was met by various dignitaries including transport minister Eamon Ryan and Mayo TD Dara Calleary at Ireland West Airport, more commonly known as Knock airport.
The president spent a few minutes on the tarmac as he and his sister Valerie Biden Owens were greeted by the dignitaries.
“It’s good to be back,” he said as he began to shake hands with those there to greet him.
The final day of Mr Biden’s trip – which former taoiseach Enda Kenny said was the longest presidential visit to the island of Ireland ever – will culminate in a public address.
The speech will take place at St Muredach’s Cathedral, which has a direct link to the president’s ancestors.
Mr Biden’s great-great-great grandfather Edward Blewitt sold 27,000 bricks to the cathedral in 1827, which helped buy tickets for himself and his family to sail to America decades later in 1851.
After his visit to Knock, he will visit the North Mayo Heritage and Genealogical Centre’s family history research unit, and later give a public address at a cathedral in Ballina – the town where some of his ancestors came from.
Former Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said he hopes US president Joe Biden will receive an “almighty welcome” when he arrives in Co Mayo for the end of his four-day trip to the island of Ireland.
Speaking to RTE’s , Mr Kenny said the trip was the longest presidential visit to the island of Ireland ever and brought “endless opportunity”.
“Of all the American presidents that I’ve seen and met, he has been the most active Irishness of them all.
“A man deeply proud of his faith, deeply proud of his heritage, and has paid tribute to that during his visit here.
“And I hope that as a Mayo man myself, that by the time he gets to the Moy river and St Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina this evening, that they will give him one almighty welcome.”
Tánaiste Micheál Martin said it had been a “very special week” for Ireland.
Mr Martin told the same programme: “It has been a very special week insofar as it captures that special relationship with this president and the American people in terms of a shared past, and in many ways it’s a tribute to the legacy of that past given his own personal family story of emigration.
“But it is also a tribute to rich possibility of the future which I think he did focus on very significantly.
“In addition to that it is about shared values, it is about faith in the rules-based international order.”
On Wednesday, the president visited Co Louth, to where some of his family have been traced, and the visit to Co Mayo tracks the other side of his family tree.
It is also believed Mr Biden will make a private visit to the Mayo Roscommon Hospice in Castlebar that is dedicated to his son Beau who died of brain cancer in 2015.
The visit will conclude in the town of Ballina where Mr Biden will make a speech at St Muredach’s Cathedral.
Mr Biden’s great-great-great grandfather Edward Blewitt sold 27,000 bricks to the cathedral in 1827, which helped buy tickets for himself and his family to sail to America decades later in 1851.
The Mayo visits conclude the president’s four-day trip to the island of Ireland.
In the Dáil on Thursday, Mr Biden spoke of his pride at addressing the country’s politicians.
“This is one of the great honours of my career, to be here today, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart,” he said.
In a dinner at Dublin Castle in his honour, the president received a standing ovation as he finished a speech in which he reflected on his family roots and told the audience: “No barrier is too thick or too strong for Ireland.”
