Biden To Address Irish Parliament On 'homecoming' Visit

Dublin, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th Apr, 2023 ) :After a frosty encounter north of the border, US President Joe Biden is assured of a far warmer welcome by lawmakers in Ireland on Thursday during a visit to the country of his ancestors.

Biden, who is only the second Catholic president in America's history, will address the Irish parliament, known as the Oireachtas, in Dublin, following in steps first walked by John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

In June, 1963, he became the first sitting president to visit Ireland -- five months before his assassination.

In his speech, Kennedy remarked that the parliament building -- Leinster House -- had once belonged to his ancestors the Fitzgeralds, the earls of Kildare.

But, he joked, "I have not come here to claim it".

Instead, he dwelt on "the many and the enduring links which have bound the Irish and the Americans since the earliest days", when both were engaged in struggle against the British.

Unlike JFK, Biden cannot boast of noble ancestors in his lineage, but some of his forebears fled famine under British rule and congregated in hardscrabble Scranton, Pennsylvania.

In his own address Thursday, Biden will echo his predecessor in underscoring "the deep and enduring historical, cultural, political and economic ties between our countries", according to senior White House adviser Amanda Sloat.