Joe Biden in Ireland: Biden remembers late son in emotional Mayo visiton April 14, 2023 at 4:31 pm

President Joe Biden has had a chance encounter in Mayo with the priest who performed the last rites on his son Beau who died from brain cancer.

Beau Biden, the former Delaware Attorney General, died in 2015.

During a visit to Knock Shrine, the president met ex-US Army chaplain Fr Frank O’Grady who is now working at the shrine.

The parish priest who brought about the meeting said it was a “wonderful, spontaneous thing”.

Fr Richard Gibbons told BBC Radio’s Ulster’s Evening Extra programme he gave President Biden a tour of the basilica at Knock Shrine and said he spoke about his family, his faith and his son Beau.

“It just so happened, that we have working at the shrine here the chaplain who gave the last rites, the last anointing, to his son in the United States,” he said.

“He wanted to meet him straight away, he dispatched a secret service agent to go and find him.

“He got the shock of his life, to come over, so that was a wonderful spontaneous thing that happened.

“He [President Biden] was crying, it really affected him and then we said a prayer, said a decade of the rosary for his family.

“He lit a candle and then he took a moment or two of private for prayer.”

Knock Shrine is a pilgrimage site for Catholics. In 1879, locals said they saw an apparition of Mary, Joseph, John the Evangelist, angels and an altar with a cross and a lamb (representing Jesus).

According to Irish tourism sites, 1.5m pilgrims visit Knock Shrine every year.

Mr Biden, who is being accompanied by his sister Valerie Biden Owens, has links to County Mayo through his great grandfather Edward Blewitt.

He is due to speak at a homecoming celebration outside St Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina on Friday night, with a crowd of up to 20,000 people expected to line the streets.

It is thought that the president will be presented with a brick from a fireplace that is the last surviving piece of his ancestral home in Ballina.

President Biden made a private visit to the Mayo Roscommon Hospice in Castlebar that is dedicated to his son, Beau.

The president will also visit the North Mayo Heritage Centre.

Its family history research unit works with people around the world who want to trace their ancestry from Mayo.

Ballina councillor Mark Duffy said people were eagerly awaiting the president’s arrival.

“This is a homecoming event, it’s a welcome home where he has family and friends in the area,” he told BBC News NI.

“It’s meaningful for the president, it’s meaningful for the people here in town.”

Mags Downey Martin of Ballina Chamber of Commerce said it was “an epic, unbelievable, out of this world experience for Ballina”.

“I mean you can’t quantify it. You cannot say what it means for us,” she said.

A star-studded line-up of Irish musicians, including The Academic, The Chieftains and The Coronas, is set to entertain the crowd at St Muredach’s Cathedral on Friday.

Coronas’ frontman Danny O’Reilly told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme that the band is “buzzing” to perform for another US president, having previously played for Barack Obama during his 2011 visit.

“We were literally just asked to get involved earlier this week and it’s been all go, a lot of security, a lot of planning,” he said.

“It’s a strange gig but it’s so exciting… the whole town is just buzzing for it, it’s definitely an event that we won’t forget.

“It’s one of those bucket list things you’re just happy to be involved in,” he added.

Mr O’Reilly added he understands the Mayo GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) team and former Irish president Mary Robinson will also be taking to the stage.

Gardai [Irish police] in County Mayo have announced a number of traffic restrictions surrounding the presidential visit.

There will be restrictions on the N17 between Charlestown and Claremorris and the N5 between Charlestown and Castlebar.

Access to Mayo University Hospital will be affected by traffic diversions.

In Ballina, from 10:00 on Friday until after the event in the town finishes, access will be restricted to local residents and business workers only.

On Thursday, President Biden declared he was home as he made an historic address to the Irish Parliament.

In his speech to a joint sitting of the Oireachtas (both houses of the Irish parliament), he spoke of his pride in his Irish roots and support for the peace process in Northern Ireland.

He said the UK “should be working closer” with Ireland to support Northern Ireland.

On Friday, Tanaiste (deputy prime minister) Micheál Martin said he believed the remarks were an exhortation to everybody to work together.

“I think the context was clear from the president, he was speaking in the context of all of us,” Mr Martin said.

“He mentions the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Ireland.”

Mr Martin also praised a speech the president gave in Belfast on Wednesday, saying it achieved the right balance and would help the political atmosphere in Northern Ireland.

“I think it will have served a purpose, in respect of that I have no doubt,” he said.

On Thursday President Biden met Irish President Michael D Higgins at his official residence Áras an Uachtaráin and then attended a state dinner at Dublin Castle.

He will return to America on Friday night.

Declan Harvey and Tara Mills explore the text of the Good Friday Agreement – the deal which heralded the end of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

They look at what the agreement actually said and hear from some of the people who helped get the deal across the line.

Listen to all episodes of Year ’98: The Making of the Good Friday Agreement on BBC Sounds.