Joe Biden’s ancestral home in the west of Ireland celebrated his victory with champagne, Guinness, flags and a declaration it was now Bidenland.
Ballina, a County Mayo town near the Atlantic coast, toasted the US president-elect as a native son on Saturday night and early Sunday after he defeated Donald Trump.
Families gathered under a pop art-style mural of Biden in Market Square to clink glasses and express relief that the Blewitt didn’t blow it. The Democrat is the great-great-great-grandson of Edward Blewitt, who emigrated to the US after the 1840s famine and settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
“The count just dragged out and dragged and finally it happened. We’re thrilled, we’re delighted,” said Joe Blewitt, 41, a plumber who is a third cousin of Biden.
He had endorsed his relative during the campaign with a sign on his van – “Joe Biden for the White House, Joe Blewitt for your house” – that spread on social media, prompting abuse from some Trump supporters in the US.
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Blewitt lauded Biden’s victory speech in Delaware, more than 3,000 miles west of Ballina, as conciliatory and presidential. “He was brilliant. You can see that he’s a president, like, he stands up there. It was all about the people that didn’t vote for him, which is right.”
Biden has expressed pride in his Irish roots – another branch of his family came from County Louth – and visited Ireland many times, meeting relatives whom he then hosted in the US. He turned the sod on a hospice in Ballina, which has a plaque honouring his son Beau, who died in 2015.
Villagers erected US and Irish flags, balloons and Biden and Kamala Harris posters last week in anticipation of a party. It started on Saturday evening as television networks declared the Democrats on course for the White House.
A speaker played Biden’s campaign song, Bruce Springsteen’s We Take Care of Our Own, and a cherry red 1957 Buick Electra coupe cruised Market Square for extra US atmosphere. A poster declared Ballina the US’s newest state.
“We’re just delighted, it was a little bit surreal,” said Laurita Blewitt, 37, a fourth cousin who helped gather the clan for a lunch when Biden visited in 2016.
She spoke to the president-elect’s brother and nephew on Sunday, she said. “They were all emotional and exhausted.” Ballina hopes to welcome back Biden during his four-year term.
JFK began a tradition of US presidents exploring family roots on visits to Ireland, a precedent followed by Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and even Barack Obama, who visited Moneygall in County Offaly in 2011. A nearby motorway service station was named Barack Obama Plaza in his honour. Ballina residents said they hoped to find a grander way to honour Biden, but have not yet decided how.
Meanwhile, in the County Clare village of Doonbeg, there was speculation the outgoing president might hunker down in his golf resort to lick his wounds. There is a precedent of sorts. After losing a referendum and resigning the presidency of France in 1969, Charles de Gaulle sought tranquility in Sneem, County Kerry, for six weeks.
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