“OH AND ONE more thing – Mayo for Sam.”

Those were the words that US President Joe Biden chose to round out his four-day trip to Ireland.

The Mayo team has not won the coveted Sam MacGuire cup in more than 70 years, despite reaching the final – and losing – 11 times since 1989.

Playing to the Ballina 27,000 strong crowd, Biden knew well such a line would go down well. And he was right.

The crowds went wild as U2′s It’s a Beautiful Day played out. 

Anticipation of the president’s visit to the town built up throughout the day, with crowds queueing for several hours down towards the Moy riverfront and St Muredach’s Cathedral that framed the US President’s speech.

“Welcome home Joe” signs dotted the roadside on the way into the town, with US flag bunting flying outside many a business establishment.   

Excited crowds gathered in Ballina. Sasko Lazarov Sasko Lazarov

US flags and bunting

Those waiting waved their Irish and US miniature flags and the rain didn’t seem to dampen the spirits. 

Around 10,000 tickets were allocated for the public event in Ballina, but the numbers far exceeded that. A VIP area, to the left of the bullet proof glass, had seating for distinguished guests such as former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, former Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his wife, Transport Minister Eamon Ryan and Business Minister Simon Coveney to name but a few.

In just a short space of time, three people including a young child and an older lady, had to be lifted over the barricades at the front of the stage where Biden was to appear. 

‘Mayo for Sam’: the crowd goes wild 🙌 pic.twitter.com/Etixx2ObWy

— Christina Finn (@christinafinn8) April 14, 2023

While the schedule was running behind, the public got to enjoy music from The Academic, The Coronas and The Chieftains, with Irish dancing breaking out in the crowds, to keep the spirits up in the dropping temperatures.  

In dramatic style, the president’s Marine One helicopter swept over the heads of the crowd.

After Taoiseach Leo Varadkar hailed Biden as the “most Irish of all American presidents”, a silence swept across the crowd before the announcement of the US president.

Dropkick Murphy’s

He walked onto the stage to the sound of Dropkick Murphy’s I’m Shipping Up From Boston.

Opening his speech outside Saint Muredach’s Cathedral Biden tonight, he said: “It feels like coming home.”

The US president hasn’t been shy to voice his love of Ireland on this trip. 

Throughout this trip, he’s been criticised for not showing as much love for his English side, though he has made reference to it at times throughout the week. 

Probably not doing himself many favours in that regard, Biden referenced his father, and how it was a “saving grace” in the eyes of the Finnegans on his mother’s side, there was a Hanafees from Galway on his mother’s side.

He said it rescued the fact “Biden is an English name”.

He also made such a reference in Dundalk earlier in the week, when he said “you know, Biden is English. I hate to tell you that”. He laughed before adding: “I don’t hate to — I’m joking, but it’s true.”

He told those that had gathered along the River Foy tonight that there are many other Irish-Americans that would only love to return home to the old sod. 

Meeting the chaplain

The president also referenced one of the most poignant moments in today’s events, when he unexpectedly met the priest who gave the last rites to his son.

Beau Biden, the president’s son, died in 2015 after a two-year battle with brain cancer. 

The Parish priest of Knock, Fr Richard Gibbons, told the BBC today the chaplain, Fr O’Grady, who performed the last rites sacrament to Beau Biden now works at the Knock shrine in Co Mayo where the president paid a visit today.

Biden told the crowd this evening that “out of the blue” he met the former military chaplain who worked at Walter Reed Medical Hospital of Washington.

“It was incredible to see him, it seemed like a sign,” he said.

The president also referenced a visit he made earlier in the day to the Mayo Roscommon Hospice, where there is a plaque in memory of his son Beau.

Biden turned the first sod on the Mayo Roscommon Hospice Foundation project in 2017.

He said: “I can tell you how special it is that a piece of his legacy lives here among his ancestors.

Third trip to Ballina 

This is the third trip to Ballina by Biden, but his first as president of America. 

Standing on the podium this evening, where the rain thankfully stayed away, it was clear that this was a personal moment for the president. 

“Everything between Ireland and America runs deep; our history, our heritage, our sorrows, our future, our friendship. But more than anything, hope is what beats in the hearts of all our people.

Sasko Lazarov Sasko Lazarov

“For centuries during times of darkness and despair, hope has kept us marching forward toward a better future, one of greater liberty, greater dignity and greater possibilities.”

He said: “My friends, people of Mayo, this is a moment to recommit our hearts, our minds, our ardent souls to the march of progress.

“To lay the foundation brick by brick by brick, for a better future for our kids and our grandkids, one of greater liberty, opportunity and dignity just like our ancient ancestors did for us.

“I’ve never been more optimistic and I’ve been doing this a long time.”

Telling the crowd visiting Ballina felt like going home, he continued: “Over the years, stories of this place have become part of my soul, part of my family lore.”

Biden said he and his siblings were raised with “a fierce pride in our Irish ancestry”.

“A pride that spoke to both the history that binds us but more importantly the values that unite us,” he said.

“To this day I can still remember hearing my dad say at the dinner table, ‘Joey, everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect’, I can still hear my mom tell me, ‘Joey, nobody is better than you but everybody is your equal’.”

Criticisms about Irish ‘malarky’

There is no doubt that this trip has had a shovel-load of paddywhackery and ‘malarky’, as the US president put it yesterday, and some are not too pleased about it. 

Climate activist group Young Friends of the Earth Ireland held a protest outside the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin today, condemning Biden’s approval of the Willow Project, an oil drilling project in Alaska. 

Speaking in the Dáil yesterday, Biden said Ireland and the US both have a “commitment to fight climate crisis to preserve our planet for future generations”.
 
“The single existential threat to the world is climate change,” he said, however, there’s no doubt that once he departs Ireland tonight, the carbon emissions from his flights from Belfast to Dublin to Knock will be totted up.

Criticism has also been levelled from People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy and his party colleagues, who have hit out at the president using the Oireachtas as his own personal “soapbox” with no opportunity for critical questions from themselves or the media. 

Four more years? 

No opportunity has been afforded to put the hard questions to the US president on this trip, but such a thing did not appear to bother crowds in Ballina this evening – the excitement that the spotlight and all eyes were on their small town tonight. 

Hard questions will be asked of Biden though in the weeks and months ahead. 

Before boarding Air Force One this evening, Biden said that he has decided to run for a second term and will announce his campaign “relatively soon”.

His trip to Ireland has reinforced his sense of optimism about what can be done. Four more years of the Joe Show? Stranger things have happened.