Paul Hosford: After the clichés, Biden cites Yeats to honour the 'glory' of his Irish connections
US president Joe Biden leaned into the west of Ireland in his remarks in the Oval Office on Friday, quoting WB Yeats's 'The Municipal Gallery Revisited' (1937) to underline the relationship between Ireland and America.
Mr Biden said that St Patrick's Day was a "big day" in his family and he would visit Mayo "soon".
The Oval Office part of the day flies by, as respective press pools are rushed in to watch the two men exchange pleasantries before being rushed back out, despite the US press seeking answers to questions from their commander in chief.
But it was not just friendship which was being extolled on "St Patty's Day" as US politicians from across the spectrum urged the North's politicians to re-establish the Northern Executive.
Compromise, working together, that's "the Irish in it", Joe Biden told a lunch on Capitol Hill where the North's leaders sat across two tables.
The list of "Irish" qualities put across this week have been numerous — perseverance; a commitment to fighting but then making up; Nato membership; an ability for our rugby team to end wars. But Mr Biden's comments — that compromise was necessary and needed and possible on the island of Ireland — are important.
He will come to Ireland in the coming months and will aim to arrive as the North's institutions are back up and running in time for the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
Here, all week, the theme of those in American positions of power has been to urge Unionists to sign up to the Windsor Framework, with the rhetoric at times verging on unkind, particularly when Chuck Schumer told the Ireland Funds Dinner that Irish people knew what it was like to fight “unwanted invaders”.
At a time when the tone needed is more conciliatory, this version of nationalism is rousing to some, but largely unhelpful.
So, too, were the President's comments about his own Irishness.
"I’ve been to Ireland many times, but not to actually look up, to find my actual family members. And there are so many — and they actually weren’t in jail,” Biden said to scattered laughs as he recalled a six-day visit in which he met his relatives.
“There’s still a place called Finnegan’s pub … that’s related to my family,” the president went on.
“I’m the only Irishman you ever met, though, that’s never had a drink, so I’m OK. I’m really not Irish.”
However, Leo Varadkar said that Mr Biden was “a president who is unmistakably a son of Ireland”, someone in whose life “we see reflected the story of Ireland”.
“It is a story of service and patriotism, of courage in the face of tragedy and, above all, of faith in the future.”
For the Taoiseach, his Irish language opening was thought to be the first such introduction dropped in the Oval Office by a Taoiseach as he began the end of a three-day visit, but it was the mention of another Irishman that had sparked excitement.
One Direction’s Niall Horan announced on Thursday that he had been asked to perform, prompting screams of joy — and that was just within the press corps.
Inside the East Room of the White House there were stars from the worlds of politics (Nancy Pelosi, Joe Kennedy III), the GAA (Joe Brolly) and rugby (Rob Kearney).
However, it was Niall Horan whose name saw a group of young women mob a press photographer — only for him to snap photos of DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson.
In his speech in the East Room, Mr Biden said that the Irish are the only people who are "nostalgic for the future".
In a lot of ways, that's what this week is.
A people looking at their roots, where they have come from, and a people looking to move forward, to keep and maintain a lasting peace.
Sometimes, the communication of those things is clumsy, but the intent is more often than not in the right place. And that, to borrow a phrase, is the Irish of it.
