President Joe Biden’s trip to his ancestral homeland will highlight the US and Ireland’s “larger shared history”, the White House says.
He is in Northern Ireland and the Republic for a four-day visit to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. This is a peace accord that helped to put an end to 30 years of brutal conflict in Northern Ireland.
Although the president jokes that he's "not really Irish" because he has "never had a drink," his family history contradicts this.
Before Mr Biden's 2016 visit to Ireland when he was US vice president, the White House commissioned the Irish Family History Centre (IFHC) to investigate his ancestry.
With 10 of his 16 great-great ancestors hailing from Ireland, the centre concluded that Mr Biden "is among the most 'Irish' of all US presidents," making him nearly five-eighths Irish.
We take a look at the president’s Irish family ties.
President Joe Biden’s Irish ties
Sky News says Mr Biden's mother Catherine "Jean" Finnegan's side of the family was where his Irish ancestry originated.
Ten of Mr Biden’s 16 great-grandparents were born in Ireland. Mr Biden has ties to the Blewitts in County Mayo on the west coast and the Finnegans in County Louth in the east. When he visited the latter in 2016, he called it “heaven”.
Research has shown that many other professions were represented among Mr Biden's forebears, including surveyors, engineers, and farmers.
His ancestors crossed the Atlantic and settled in America during the Great Famine of the 1800s. This killed roughly a million people.
The president's great, great, great-grandfather Edward Blewitt, who was born in 1795, is the earliest traceable direct relative that experts have discovered.
He resided in Ballina, a town in north County Mayo formerly regarded as Ireland's salmon fishing centre.
The Irish Mirror says his living family relatives have been bracing themselves for his upcoming visit.
