London, Thanasis Gavos

Dedicated to County Mayo, where his mother’s family is from, today is the last day of Joe Biden’s visit to Ireland.

En route to the town of Ballina, where his ancestors lived, the US President will first stop at the Sanctuary of the Virgin Mary in Knock. It is close to a church important in Catholic tradition, at a point where believers reported in 1879 that they saw the Virgin appear. The Sanctuary was visited one hundred years later, in 1979, by the then Pope John Paul.

President Biden will then visit the County Heritage and Genealogy Center’s Family History Research Unit.

In Ballina he will address a crowd gathered outside the local cathedral, which was built with bricks supplied by his ancestor in 1827. He is also expected to be given a brick from the fireplace of the house where his maternal grandparents lived.

He will then depart for the US on Air Force One, completing his four-day trip to the island of Ireland.

On Thursday the US President addressed members of both houses of the Irish Parliament, re-emphasizing the importance of maintaining peace on the island and restoring the functioning of devolved democratic institutions in Northern Ireland.

He even said that the UK should work more closely with the Republic of Ireland to that end.

In a toast he made last night at a state dinner in Dublin Castle, Mr Biden again referred to the importance of peace and said decisions made around the world today will determine the next three or four decades, which he noted is happening “every five or six generations throughout history.”

As he added, “things change, we have an opportunity to improve them – or else sit back and let events determine what we do.”