When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Geopolitics

In The Footsteps Of JFK: Biden's Ireland Trip Weaves Personal With Geopolitical

There's a long tradition of U.S. presidents — many of whom have been of Irish heritage — visiting Ireland. But Joe Biden's visit is much more than just a diplomatic mission.

Photo of a ​crowd flying U.S. and Irish flags as they greet then Vice President Joe Biden during a state visit to Dublin in June 2016

Crowd greeting then Vice President Joe Biden during a state visit to Dublin in June 2016

Liam Kennedy*

The U.S. president, Joe Biden, is expected in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. His visit will be one of historic symbolism and of personal significance, as an Irish Catholic president who has spoken proudly of his ties to the country.

A few weeks ago, the UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, formally invited Biden to come to Northern Ireland to mark the anniversary of the peace deal, which the U.S. helped broker. The UK has much work to do to repair relations with the U.S. following the Trump-Johnson years, especially if they are to pursue a much desired trade deal that has been stymied partly due to U.S. concerns about the safety of the Good Friday Agreement post-Brexit.

The four-day visit comes at a fragile time for the agreement, threatened by post-Brexit trade arrangements and political tensions in Northern Ireland. Power-sharing in the Northern Ireland assembly — a key feature of the Good Friday Agreement — has been in limbo for over a year, due to a boycott by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). In a recent poll, a majority of Northern Irish unionists said they would vote against the agreement if a referendum were held today.


The visit has other historical symbolism and personal relevance for the U.S. president. Biden will spend three days in the Republic of Ireland. For that part of the island, the visit will be less about Northern Ireland issues, and more around the historically resonant imagery of an Irish Catholic president returning to his roots.

There is a long history of U.S. presidents visiting Ireland. It is thought that 23 of the 46 presidents have been of Irish heritage. Until the early 1960s, most visits were by former presidents whose families originated in Northern Ireland.

In 1963, John F. Kennedy became the first sitting — and first Irish Catholic — president to visit. His sojourn was widely viewed as a symbolic homecoming. Both Irish and American media at the time described it as a “sentimental journey”. Biden, the second Irish Catholic U.S. president, will stir memories of Kennedy.

Biden's Irish roots

Biden will spend time visiting his ancestral home and meeting family in County Louth and County Mayo. He is clearly proud of his Irish roots, often referencing how his family history has shaped his political career and worldview. As he wrote in 2016: “Northeast Pennsylvania will be written on my heart. But Ireland will be written on my soul.”

Biden’s visit should not be understood as purely a sentimental journey.

Biden has knowingly taken on the Kennedy mantle as a politician. Over the years he has come to personify a liberal politics of empathy, in which his Irish ancestry and Catholicism function as moral touchstones. However, this can shroud an underlying reality, that Ireland and the U.S. are increasingly adrift, out of sync on matters political and cultural.

At the same time, Irish America is ageing and growing more conservative, with very few new emigrants refuelling it. Biden represents a disappearing figure, the last of a once powerful tribe of liberal Irish American politicians.

Biden’s visit should not be understood as purely a sentimental journey. Indeed, looking back we can see that Kennedy’s visit was much more of a diplomatic mission than many viewed it in 1963.

Photo of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in a crowd as he visited Cork, Ireland, in June 1963.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy visiting Cork, Ireland, in June 1963.

Keystone Press Agency/ZUMA

Diplomatic mission

Kennedy visited Ireland on his return from Berlin, after giving one of the most important speeches of the Cold War. His engagement with Ireland at that time aligned the controversially neutral state with the forces of “freedom”. And behind the scenes, a good deal of diplomatic and economic business was carried out that would benefit Ireland’s relations with the U.S. for years to come.

It is a chance for Biden to repair the U.S.’s global reputation for leadership in liberal internationalism.

As with Kennedy’s visit, economic diplomacy will be important, most obviously in the promise of U.S. investment in Northern Ireland to reward and secure the new EU-UK deal on Brexit.

It is also a chance for Biden to repair the U.S.’s global reputation for leadership in liberal internationalism, which has been on the back foot since the Trump administration.

Biden views the Good Friday Agreement as a significant achievement of U.S. foreign policy, and one that enjoys bipartisan support in the U.S. To celebrate it today is to assert the U.S.’s support for the rule of law in foreign policy, and promote the agreement as a model of peace for other post-conflict states. He’ll receive a warm welcome, but like Kennedy, the visit is something more than just sentimental.

*Liam Kennedy is a Professor of American Studies at University College Dublin.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Society

How Argentina Is Changing Tactics To Combat Gender Violence

Argentina has tweaked its protocols for responding to sexual and domestic violence. It hopes to encourage victims to report crimes and reveal information vital to a prosecution.

A black and white image of a woman looking at a memorial wall in Argentina.

A woman looking at a memorial wall in Argentina.

CC search
Mara Resio

BUENOS AIRES - In the first three months of 2023, Argentina counted 116 killings of women, transvestites and trans-people, according to a local NGO, Observatorio MuMaLá. They reveal a pattern in these killings, repeated every year: most femicides happen at home, and 70% of victims were protected in principle by a restraining order on the aggressor.

✉️ You can receive our LGBTQ+ International roundup every week directly in your inbox. Subscribe here.

Now, legal action against gender violence, which must begin with a formal complaint to the police, has a crucial tool — the Protocol for the Investigation and Litigation of Cases of Sexual Violence (Protocolo de investigación y litigio de casos de violencia sexual). The protocol was recommended by the acting head of the state prosecution service, Eduardo Casal, and laid out by the agency's Specialized Prosecution Unit for Violence Against Women (UFEM).

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch

The latest